DO Get Your Hopes Up!

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"Well, don't get your hopes up..."

How many times have you heard that and it just seemed to suck all the air out of the room? I think that’s what it’s designed to do: act like a vacuum, deflate your enthusiasm, crush your spirit, destroy your faith.

There’s really nothing positive in that saying at all. Just like many cliches and worldly sayings, it is not Biblical, it is not obedient to God’s word, it is not good. Keeping your hopes up is God’s way! Let’s do get our hopes up! Let’s take a chance on being hopeful! Let’s dare to hope!

Hope is good. God tells us to hope. He doesn’t say, “Well, don’t get your hopes up, so that you won’t be disappointed.” That doesn’t sound like Him at all, does it? Let’s look at hope from God’s point of view instead of just the world’s (Satan’s) view:

(all are from the HCSB translation)

Psalm 42:5 - Why am I so depressed? Why this turmoil within me? Put your hope in God, for I will still praise Him, my Savior and my God.

Romans 5:5 - This hope does not disappoint, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

Romans 12:12 - Rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; be persistent in prayer.

1 Cor. 13:7 - Love... bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

1 Cor. 13:13 - Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Eph. 1:18 - I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the glorious riches of His inheritance among the saints.

Col. 1:27 - God wanted to make known to those among the Gentiles the glorious wealth of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

1 Thes. 4:13 - We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers concerning those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who have no hope.

1 Thes. 5:8 - ...and put on a helmet of the hope of salvation.

1 Pet. 3:15 - ...always be ready to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.

1 John 3:3 - And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself just as He is pure.

We can easily see that hope is good from those scriptures, from those men who knew the hope of Christ. We can see that it is a good thing, to get our hopes up! But here’s the best reason of, to hope:

Hebrews 11:1 (HCSB)

Now faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen.


We need faith, don’t we? Doesn’t God say that without it we will not stand? (Isaiah) Doesn’t He say that the righteous shall live by faith? (Hab. 2:4) Doesn’t the Bible say that anything not of faith is sin? (Rom. 14:23) Doesn’t It say that “Without faith it is impossible to please God?” (Heb. 11:6) Doesn’t It say we receive the promises “by faith and patience”? (Heb. 6:12) Doesn’t it say that our faith saves us? (Luke 7:50)

Well, then what would happen if we didn’t have faith? We would fall, we’d be in sin, we wouldn’t please God, and we’d not inherit His promises. We need faith to stand, to be righteous by Christ, to please God, to walk in victory.

Faith is important, then, right?

Faith = The substance of what we hope for.

If we aren’t hoping for anything, then how can we faithfully believe for it? If we aren’t hoping for the return of Jesus, how can we believe He’ll return? If we aren’t hoping for healing, we won’t have faith to receive it. If we don’t get our hopes up to walk in victory and love, then we won’t. We’ll lose and be selfish and miserable the rest of our lives.

Let’s dare to hope then! Let’s get our hopes up and take a chance on God coming through for us! Let’s hope to see His promises come true in our lives and let’s let that hope be the basis, the substance, that our faith needs to operate.

Now, let's DO get our hopes up -- God will come through.

 

"...so that you will not grieve like the rest, who have no hope." - 1 Thes. 4:13

 

Scripture quotations marked HCSB have been taken from the Holman Christian Standard Bible (R), Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Holman Christian Standard Bible (R), Holman CSB (R), and HCSB (R) are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

"And look, I am sending you what My Father promised. As for you, stay in the city until you are empowered from on high." - Luke 24:49 (HCSB)

Word Of Victory Ministries