Hope and Faith to Reach Your Future
“Vision requires us to put words to our hope and what we believe is the will of God.”
True leaders rally people to a better future. One thing that defines leaders is their preoccupation with the future. If you carry a vivid image of what the future could be, you are a leader. Leaders are fascinated by the future, thinking a lot about what it could be like. They are restless for change, impatient for progress, and always dissatisfied with the status quo.
A strong HOPE for the future and the FAITH needed to get there is closely tied to fulfilling God's vision for us. Vision requires us to put words to our hope and what we believe is the will of God. The Bible tells us that “FAITH IS THE VICTORY THAT OVERCOMES THE WORLD”.
Even when we have vision and faith to fulfill it, we can wrestle with doubt. But did you know faith will work in your heart with doubt in your head? Real faith is in your heart anyway!
Romans 10:8-10 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart”—that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.
Faith involves both your heart and your mouth. We believe with our hearts, but we must still speak with our mouths. Faith is released through our words.
Mark 11:23 “Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it shall be granted him.”
Notice Jesus said only once that we must believe, but He said twice that we must speak. Thomas said he would only believe what he saw in the natural. Yet Abraham believed before he saw God’s vision happen.
Romans 4:18-22 “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’ Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what He had promised.”
We would all like faith like Abraham’s. First, you need hope like Abraham’s. Hope is defined as the desire for something a person believes can be obtained. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. If all you did was hope, nothing would happen because hope has no substance. But hope is an important partner to faith. Hope is the goal-setter. There must be some hope or there is nothing for faith to give substance to. You can always go to the word of God and get some hope. God is full of hope! Abraham saw no evidence or likelihood that he would become a father, and yet God promised he would be a father to nations.
Before God said “so shall your offspring be,” He had Abraham count stars. In Gen. 15: 5, “He took him outside and said, ‘Look up at the heavens and count the stars if indeed you can count them.’ Then he said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’” This must have been a stretch for Abraham. Didn’t that encourage unnecessary dreaming? Didn’t that tempt Abraham to develop unrealistic expectations? No, it aligned Abraham’s expectations with God’s and it raised his hope and activated his faith. So maybe you need to go count stars!
You see, hope is like a thermostat. It is a goal-setter. If it is 100 degrees outside and you want it to be cooled to 74 inside, you set the thermostat at 74. But faith is the AC. After setting your thermostat, your AC will work all day and night if it must to give you 74 degrees. Hope is like a thermostat. By itself, it has no substance to give you, but it will set the goal to activate your faith to do its work.
Even if you are in a difficult season like Job was, He said “I will hope in God.” So set your hope, believe in your heart, and speak it out with your mouth.
