Lately, in my spirit, I’ve been sensing that the church needs a steady influx of hope. My level of faith and love has been off the charts, but my sense of hope is very flimsy.
I asked the Lord, “How can that be? Don’t faith and hope go hand in hand? How can you have strong faith and weak hope?”
Then, I heard the Lord say faith and love dwell in your heart, but hope is a mindset. The state of your hope is governed by your pattern of thinking. Faith is like the pulsating electric current running through a home, but if you never flip the switch, you’ll never see the manifestation of light. Hope is the light switch. Without hope, your faith has nothing to give substance to—for faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen (Hebrews 11:1).
Zechariah 9:12 states “Turn you to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope: even today do I declare that I will render double unto thee.” Our minds are like a battlefield, and we can build strongholds by the way we think. This can work both ways—good or bad.
If you are constantly watching the news and listening to negative reports, you can build a stronghold of fear in your mind. In the same way, when we immerse ourselves in the Word and always look to the good things God is doing in our lives, we build a stronghold of hope and literally become “prisoners of hope.”
That means even when trouble comes and things are looking bad, we can’t escape this fortified city of hope and are fully persuaded God will work it out for our good (Romans 8:28).
That’s why God used the sand in the desert and stars in the sky to illustrate to Abraham how many descendants he would have. This way, Abraham would have a constant reminder of God’s promise.
Every time Abraham cleaned sand out of his toes, he would be reminded of what God said “And I will give you so many descendants that, like the dust of the earth, they cannot be counted!” (Gen 13: 16). Every time Abraham pitched his tent at night to rest, he could look up at the sky and remember what God said: “Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can. That’s how many descendants you will have!” (Gen 15:5).
In a lot of ways, the enemy has usurped our imagination to distract us from the Truth and cause us to take our eyes off Jesus. This is causing our faith to stagnate and hope to die. It’s time we take it back!
I pray Ephesians 1:17-23 over us:
That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:
The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,
And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power,
Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places,
Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come:
And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church,
Which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.
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