Continuing Hope

Hebrews 6:17-19 NKJV 17 Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath,
18 That by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us.
19 This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil,

When we respond to life from simply the emotions of our heart we often take steps that can cause us to lose all hope and even give up sometimes. We cannot live without hope, we must have hope to survive.
This hope is not some packaged remedy that this world hands us but it is an everlasting hope that comes from the very presence of God. Hope is something we must have to live. Hope is that promise that even though we may not see the end or understand the reasons of life we hope against everything that we will get an answer and there will be life beyond where we are at the moment. The New Testament word hope, means; anticipate usually with pleasure, expectation and confidence.
We must have this hope to live for God and also to walk through this world. Hope is that unseen something that lets me smile anyway, that lets me sleep in spite of situations, that causes me to keep trying no matter the odds.
Hope! It causes me to reach beyond the failures and live a full life today and still dream about a better tomorrow. Hope! We will not last without it!

The writer of Hebrews says, “Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear… God did this… we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, Hebrews 6:17-19 NIV
We who have run for our very lives to God have every reason to grab the promised hope with both hands and never let go. It's an unbreakable spiritual lifeline, reaching past all appearances right to the very presence of God (The Message)

My hope is in God! That is where my trust must find solid ground! It is a lifeline that goes into the very presence of God, a line that I can hold to with confidence; this is where I find my hopes. That is where I can rest my soul. In this hope is where I can put all my marbles. In God everlasting arms is where I can stop and breathe deep knowing that if I stay there the promise for me and my days is that He will do the right thing. It’s where my faith is. Hope, is where my life must be lived out and ordered. I can cast my cares on Him because He cares for me. That is a promise, an order, a vowed promise of God that it is impossible for Him to lie about.
This is the only real and sure Hope, God does all things well.
When my emotions tell me to quit and give up hope, it is like saying I don’t believe in the promise of God. When I follow my feelings and lose hope, I am letting go of the lifeline enough to say God didn’t really mean the promises for me or I really don’t count to God .  And in doing so I lose my belief, my faith, and have little hope that God is really there. Even though I know in my understanding there is an all powerful God, my time of pain or struggle takes my understanding from me and a then I choose not to believe. I then lose Hope. I look to myself for direction and fail to do the wise thing because I have become hopeless.

Yes, life attacks us, and the enemy comes. Even the Bibles says the enemy would show up. Scripture says, “When the enemy shall come in like a flood,… But the verse didn’t stop there. We are not left without hope! …the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him!”

A standard here is a flag or a pennant that represents the Lord is in charge, or the one who is leading. The word also means to cause to flee away.
During the Middle Ages, when the lord of the house was home his standard was flown out front. It told everyone in the country that the leader, the strong man of the house, was there.

Even though I can’t stop the assault of the cares of this world and the pain life sends my way, my hope is in the fact that God lives in my life and He has His standard flying over me. The Lord of my life is home.
Does this mean the enemy will not come? NO!
What it does mean is that strength for tomorrow is there and there is nothing that the Lord cannot handle in my life. There is hope in knowing I have the King of kings and  the Lord of lords directing the ways of my life. I have hope there. I have hope that He will do all things well!
Realizing the importance of Hope we must keep hope and continue hope.
We live in a day that continually bombards us with pressure, so it is of utmost importance that we keep hope alive. That we hold tight to the lifeline that reaches into the throne room of heaven.

Over 25 years ago my wife gave me some printed notes from her pastor’s wife Vesta Mangun. They were notes from a lesson that was taught by her. They were entitled Seven Ways to Continue my Hope. Through the years I have studied these and taught them and passed them on to others. These seven points are from Vesta Mangun and some of the following lines. I have added my own thoughts over the years and borrowed thoughts from others that are also written in the line following the points. Please don’t blame any of the not so good thoughts on Sister Mangun. I am sure her  lesson years ago was powerful and clear. But I hope you will find help in the thoughts written out here. I don’t believe they are the only ways but simply seven things we can do to continue our hope.

Seven Ways to Continue my Hope

1. God accepts us where we are and will help us there!
15 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.
16 Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Hebrews 4:15-16 NKJV

This knowledge will have to get in us or we will go under! My righteousness is as dirty rags but I can bring my hopeless life to God and He covers my life because of the blood of Jesus. I don’t have to accomplish some daring feat, I can simply go to Him, the Lord will touch me where I am and help me there. The Lord can be touched! Whatever the need, I belong to the Lord of the house and He will help me where I am at. The psalmist of the 46 Psalm sings a song here about troubles in life but keeps adding to the song that God will help. In verse 5 he declares God will help and that right early or the breaking of a new day. That is hope!

2. Sometimes resting is better than reaching, trusting better than trying.
1 I waited and waited and waited for God. At last he looked; finally he listened.
2 He lifted me out of the ditch, pulled me from deep mud. He stood me up on a solid rock to make sure I wouldn't slip.
3 He taught me how to sing the latest God-song, a praise-song to our God. More and more people are seeing this: they enter the mystery, abandoning themselves to God.
4 Blessed are you who give yourselves over to God, turn your backs on the world's "sure thing," ignore what the world worships; Psalm 40:1-4 The Message

After we have done all we can do, after praying, after fasting, the next move is God’s move to make. We can’t do the impossible only He can. So we call on Him and rest in the fact that The Lord of the House is in control.

Holman says of verse one, “In waiting I waited!” And of the pit in verse 2 he calls it, “a pit of noise.” I waited and waited and God lifted me from a noisy ditch.

T.F. Tenny said, “We praise God for open doors, but we don’t praise Him for closed doors. A closed door can be as much the will of God as an opened one.” I challenge you to wait and see what God will do. The Shepherd will hear the voice of the sheep. So take a deep breath and watch God work, wait patiently. Don’t cast away your confidence, there is a great reward that comes in being confident. Hebrews 10:35-39

3. Whatever your trial is, God will use it for good, if we will let Him.
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28 KJV

A.D. Urshan said, “Thank God for anything that makes you pray.”
God will not leave us there to wallow in our valley; He will deliver us but in doing so the Lord will do a great thing with the ones whose hope is in Him. It’s God’s way of putting something in our hands to fight with! Cut the devil’s head off with your circumstance. Use your circumstances for the Glory of God; use them to come at the devil with a second wind.

The song “All is Well With My Soul,” was written while Mr. Spafford hung over the rail of a ship weeping because his children had drowned.

Thomas A. Dorsey wrote the hymn “Precious Lord, Take My Hand” while mourning the death of his young wife and son who died during the child’s birth. While sitting in the music room of a friend on a Sunday, he thought he was through with God, he said, “As my fingers began to manipulate over the keys, words began to fall in place like water drops falling from a crevice of rock.”
Take your valley and dig a well there, build a bridge there. (Psalm 84:6)

4. Remember every trial is only temporary.
6 I know how great this makes you feel, even though you have to put up with every kind of aggravation in the meantime.
7 Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes out proved genuine. When Jesus wraps this all up, it's your faith, not your gold, that God will have on display as evidence of his victory. 1 Peter 1:6-7 The Message

The storm can’t last forever! A season is only an area in life. The sun will rise and will set but it will rise again. The winter will not last forever. Spring will come again with it fresh growth and start you towards a new harvest and production.
It is a hot oven that produces fresh bread. God is a God of all seasons and the season will change!

5. Look at hard times as discipline, not condemnation.
1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.
2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. John 15:1-2 NIV

A fruit tree bears fruit on new branches. Pruning or cutting will produce more new branches, thus giving more  fruit. It is the will of God that we produce much fruit. Discipline causes us to do a better job. Don’t allow your circumstances to make you bitter. Allow tough times to cause you to grow.
Remember clay is shaped under pressure, hardened in fire, then used in honor.

6. Keep your sense of humor; laughter is the best medicine.
A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. Proverbs 17:22 NIV

What happens to us is not nearly as important as how we respond. Dried bones are lifeless and only a miracle from God ever changed them. We can become so bitter and crushed that we dry up and become a bitter life void of anything productive. Dried bones are only a reminder of what used to be, they are skeletons of past greatness. We can’t allow our life to go down that road. There are many reasons and blessings to still smile about. If laughter is internal jogging, take a few laps and you will feel better.- T.F. Tenny


7. Count your blessing; rejoice greatly!
A remedy that will work! Cling to all your past blessings and answered prayers. Don’t forget to remind the devil, this world, and yourself of what God has done for you in the past, and the prayers that the Lord has answered before. If He did it once, He will do it again. If God has touched me before, He will put His hand on me again!

Remember to praise and worship, shout and sing before the wall falls, because it will fall again.
Hope, it is in the Lord. I can’t lose hope because if I do it is as if God doesn’t matter to me and I could easily step across that line of an unbeliever. Yes, life will take the living out of you, so for that reason alone we can’t lose the hope God has promised us. We must hold with both hands the promises of God that is where my hope is, the lifeline into the presence of Jehovah.

Thoughts on Hebrews 6:17-19 The oath of God
What are the two immutable things which the oath of God, swearing by Himself, brings upon the field! What can they be but the Divine word and the Divine name or nature? Take first the Divine word. That is an immutable thing. The word or promise of God is always sure and trustworthy. But take in now the second of the two immutable things wherein it is impossible for God to lie; His name, His character, His nature, His being and continuing to be such as He is. What new security is thus given? Is it not in substance this: -- That God discovers to us a ground or reason of what He designs to do farther back than the mere sovereign and discretionary fiat of His absolute will; deeply fixed and rooted in the very essence of His being? Is it not that He puts the certainty of that to which He swears, not only on the ground of His having intimated it beforehand, but on the ground of a stronger necessity, in the very nature of things, and in His own nature; lying far back and far down, in His being God, and being the God He is? The thing is to he so. not merely because God has said it shall be so, but also because it cannot but be so, God continuing to be, and to be the God He is. This is what, in swearing by Himself, He means to tell us.

(From The Biblical Illustrator Copyright © 2002, 2003, 2006 Ages Software, Inc. and Biblesoft, Inc.)