Hope That Does Not Disappoint (Part 3/3)

Break free of negative thoughts and begin to develop a confident expectation of God’s goodness toward you every day! In this three-part series, Pastor Joseph Prince shows you why you can continue to trust God for your breakthrough. Be encouraged as you begin to take this journey of experiencing God’s great love for you!

KEEP YOUR HOPES UP—KEEP ON HEARING

How do you keep your hopes up as you wait patiently for the manifestation of your blessing? You simply keep hearing about the goodness and faithfulness of the Lord!

Beloved, as you continue to hope in the Lord for your miracle, just keep hearing messages that are full of His love and grace toward you, and how much He wants to meet your need.

Fill yourself with new covenant promises found in His Word and keep your focus on His unmerited favor.

Know that it’s not about what you have to do, but all about what He has done at the cross to secure your blessing. Constantly hearing about God’s goodness and faithfulness was what made all the difference for Alice. She shared:

I listened to your messages over and over again as they encouraged me to focus on Christ and God’s promises instead of my symptoms. In one of the messages, I heard you say, “God is faithful,” several times in a row. Each time you said it, I felt hope rise up in my spirit.

My head was saying, “It’s been so many years. Give up and spare yourself this torture of waiting for something that will never happen.” But when I heard you say “God is faithful” repeatedly with such authority, those voices in my head would pale in the light of that hope. I believe the Holy Spirit guided you to say that in just the right number of times for me to get it deep down into my spirit!

Can you see how hearing and hearing about the Lord’s love and promises for you imparts hope? God wants you to abound in hope (see Rom. 15:13). And as in Alice’s case, constantly listening to good news about Jesus is how you abound in hope, silence the negative voices, and protect your mind. Apostle Paul told the believers in Thessalonica to put on as a helmet, the hope of salvation (see 1 Thess. 5:8). Hope that you will be saved from whatever you need God to save you from is the spiritual armor that protects your mind and keeps you going!

BIBLE HOPE SPEAKS AND SEES

How else does Bible hope grow in your heart? Well, by you speaking hope-filled words. Hebrews 10:23 says, “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.”

The more your words are seasoned with Bible hope based on God’s steadfast promises and faithfulness, the closer you are to the manifestation of your blessing.

When you wake up in the morning, instead of saying, “Oh man, it’s going to be a dreadful day,” remind yourself of the Lord’s love for you and say, “Lord Jesus, I know this will be a great day simply because You love me. Your perfect love surrounds me and drives out all fear. Your favor is all over me to open doors that are good for me. It’s going to be a beautiful day filled with Your goodness!”

At the same time, learn to develop positive mental pictures that are prompted by God’s promises. Our human tendency is to imagine the worst-case scenarios. So if you are sick and lying in bed, picture yourself strong and full of life, doing your favorite activity. See yourself running in the park with your children, or enjoying a hearty meal with your friends. Say, “Lord, because Your stripes have purchased healing for me (Isa. 53:5), I cannot but get well!” If you are believing God for a child, picture yourself cuddling that baby. See yourself making funny faces at your bundle of joy as you change his diapers! Tell the Lord, “Because children are a gift from You (see Ps. 127:3), I will bring forth a champion who will be a delight to my soul and who will do mighty things for Your kingdom!”

EVERY REASON TO HOPE

My friend, unlike the people of the world, you have every reason to hope even when the odds are stacked against you, because you are standing on favor ground.

Because of Jesus’ sacrifice for you, you are now God’s beloved child. You are totally justified, accepted, and qualified by Jesus’ blood. You are forever highly favored in Christ the Beloved. God is on your side and He is for your success in all aspects of life!

You can be like Abraham, who “contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations” (Rom. 4:18). Abraham faced an impossible situation. Just imagine: at about a century old, his reproductive system was as good as dead. And his aged wife, Sarah, was by now doubly barren since she was already barren when she was much younger (see Rom. 4:19). Imagine also all the gossip and jokes the couple had to endure, especially when God changed Abram’s name to Abraham, meaning “Father of Many Nations,” when they didn’t even have a single child to show for it!

Yet, despite all this, Abraham remained hopeful, knowing his hope was not in his own ability to father a child, but in his trustworthy, unchangeable God, whose love and promises never fail.

The result? God gave them a beautiful miracle baby whom they named Isaac, and through Isaac, Abraham indeed “became the father of many nations” (Rom. 4:18).

So let me encourage you to keep on hoping despite the odds because like Abraham and Sarah, you have a God of impossibilities who loves you, who cannot fail. It doesn’t matter what the reports say, or what the statistics show. When you have Bible hope that is firmly anchored to God’s love, it is only a matter of time before your miracle manifests.

I love how Alice wrapped up her testimony of receiving the baby she believed God for. This is what she said:

Our God is not a God of statistical probability. He is a sure hope and with Him, all things are possible. I had two different doctors during my pregnancy. Both of them asked with amazement how I’d conceived after they reviewed my history and failed attempts with fertility treatments. I just replied, “By the grace of God!”

God is just in delivering on every promise because Jesus has made us one hundred percent eligible, and He doesn’t ask us to make excuses for Him! Rather, He asks us to hold Him to His promise as Abraham did, believing that “what He had promised, He was able also to perform.” We must know that every good promise in God’s Word was written for us.

I just love that—God is not a God of statistical probability, but a sure hope with whom all things are possible. Beloved, this is your God! This is why you can hope against all hope and not have that hope disappoint. This is why you can live life with a confident and joyful expectation that good things will happen to you because the Lord loves you!

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Why You Can Hope Against All Hope