Faith and Hope

Heb. 11:1. (KJV) Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Heb. 6:18-19 (KJV) That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil;

The scriptures describe faith as the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hence, it is impossible to discuss faith without touching on hope. If you have followed our discussion thus far, you would have learnt some fundamentals of faith like; Faith and the will of God, Faithand trust, Believe in God’s love, and so on. Now we come to yet another fundamental of faith – hope. Hope is an integral part of faith, but many usually mix both up because of how closely related they are. Faith isn’t hope and hope isn’t faith, but where you find faith there you will find hope, but not vice versa. What I’m saying is that there can be no faith without hope, but hope can exist on its own without faith.

The way to better understand the concept of faith and hope is to see hope as the blueprint of faith. In other words, hope is the plan that faith sets out to accomplish. Faith always starts with a plan; a blueprint of what it wants to accomplish, and there can be no exercise of faith without first laying out that blueprint, which is hope. The challenge is that many believers only go as far as having the blueprint, but the blueprint itself is worthless if it will not be acted upon. This is similar to wanting to build a house, you must first start out with a plan, which is what hope is. But the plan isn’t the house, and the plan cannot execute itself, yet it is a vital part of getting the house built. The plan must be executed for you to have a house; the execution of that plan is what faith is.

Supposing you have the blueprint for a house, and you just pull it out on your desk every morning to admire it, without acting on it, it will only remain a good plan and you will never live in it, except you start doing something more, which is to begin to build, and by building you have put faith to work.

Hope is a very powerful component of faith but it is only passive, while faith as a whole is active. If you merely hope for something to happen, you may just hope endlessly, until you take action to make it happen or until someone else does. There are too many people stuck at the level of hope, they have the blueprint of what they want inside them and it is really lovely to behold; it may be the blueprint of healing, financial prosperity, academic success, a beautiful spouse, godly children and so on, but it will only remain a lovely blueprint till you take steps to see to the fulfillment.

The problem isn’t often that you can’t see the picture clearly, but that you lack the courage to act on what you see to bring it to pass. For as long as this happens, you will remain at best an admirer of your own dreams. Some people even have dream books, which is good, but the dream book is worthless without actual execution. Your dreams will only remain at the level of dreams until you begin to execute them. That is why when you are in faith, there must be a corresponding action to your faith. The action at some point may be simple confessions based on God’s word in line with the blueprint in your heart, and it may be taking positive steps to realize your dreams; whatever it is, there must be a corresponding action to your faith. That corresponding action of faith is what really differentiates faith from hope. The man who only hopes is helpless, but the one who is in faith has got the power to make things happen.

N.B

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