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Hope
Before you can understand how important hope is, you have to realize that real, Bible hope is not "wishing." That's worldly hope. People in the world say, "I sure wish I would get a raise at work," when what they mean is, "I want a raise. I don't think I will get it...but it would be nice if I did."

The kind of hope the Word of God talks about is much stronger than that because it's not based on wishing or wanting. It is based on your covenant with God and the anointing God has provided to carry out that covenant in your life.

In fact, Ephesians 2:12 says before you knew Jesus, you were "without Christ [or without the anointing], being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world."

"But I'm a believer," You say. "I know God's promises. Doesn't that mean I have all the hope I need?"

Not necessarily. You see, hope comes when you take those promises, keep them before your eyes and in your ears until they begin to build an image inside you. Hope comes when you begin to see yourself with what God has promised you—instead of seeing yourself without it.

When you have hope, you have a supernatural expectancy that what God has promised will come to pass in your life.

The Apostle Paul talks about that kind of supernatural expectancy in Philippians 1:19-20 where he says, "I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed."

In that scripture, Paul uses two different words from the Greek language, each of which can be translated hope. One of them means "the happy anticipation of good." The other can be defined as "eager longing, strained expectancy, watching with an outstretched head, and abstraction from anything else that might engage the attention."

When divine hope comes alive in you, you're so locked in on the Word of God, you can't be distracted from it. I know what that's like. There have been times in my life when I was so focused on something God had called me to do, and I was so tuned in to what the Word said about it, I couldn't think about anything else.

People would try to have a conversation with me and I'd always end up talking about my hope. It would come up so big inside me that at those times, I was bigger on the inside than I was on the outside.

Stick Your Neck Out
How do you develop that kind of hope? You stay in the Word until your neck stretches out. I particularly like that part of the definition of hope because I know what it means to have your neck stretched.

When I was a little boy, my grandfather was my hero. He was a full-blooded Cherokee Indian and I wanted to act like him, look like him, curse like him, chew tobacco like him and spit like him—much to my mother's chagrin. When my mother would tell me that he and my grandmother were coming to see us, I would get so excited I could hardly wait.

Every minute or two, I'd run to the window to see if they had arrived. Every noise sent me running for the door. I tell you, my neck was stretched out in anticipation. My Pawpaw was coming and I expected him any moment.

That may sound like a silly example, but the Lord once told me if people would just expect Him to move as much as a child expects his grandparents to arrive, He could move on their situation and change things drastically by the power of His Spirit.

That's what happened in Acts 3 to the crippled man at the gate Beautiful. He had been sitting by that gate begging, his head down and his eyes to the ground. But when Peter and John walked by and said, "Look on us!" that man lifted his head and began to expect.

Hope rose up in him because he was "expecting to receive something of them" (verse 5).

Of course, he received a lot more than he was expecting—he expected alms, but he got legs! That's because his expectancy hooked into their expectancy—and, believe me, their expectancy was running high!

It hadn't been more than a few days since Jesus had risen from the dead, defeated the devil and all of hell with him. It hadn't been but a few days since Jesus had looked the disciples straight in the eyes and said, "Now, you go into all the world and use My Name to cast out devils. You lay hands on the sick and they'll recover" (see Mark 16:15-18).

I can just imagine Peter saying, "Hey, John, you know that crippled beggar down there by the temple? Come on, let's go use the Name on him!"

They could see themselves doing what Jesus said they could do. Their hope was "white hot." So they went charging down to the temple and said to that cripple, "In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk."

When they said it, they grabbed him. He had to walk, brother! They yanked him completely off the ground (Acts 3:1-8).

What made them do such a thing? Expectancy!

They didn't tiptoe up to that gate, look around to make sure no one was watching and then whisper, "Dear Lord, if it be Thy will, heal this poor crippled man."

The only people who pray "if it be Thy will" are those who don't have any hope or expectancy. If you've been praying that way, stop it! Go to the Word and find out what God's will is.

The Word of God is His will. It is His will for you to be well. It is His will for you to be prosperous. It is His will for you to lay hands on the sick and it is His will for them to recover.

So stay in the Word until you're so confident and expectant that your neck is stuck out in anticipation. Meditate on the Word until your hope gets crisp and that image inside you gets strong and clear.

Stay in there until you're so full of expectancy that when someone walks up to you and says, "Good morning," you jump on them like a chicken on a bug saying, "Yes! Bless God! It is a good morning. Do you have anything wrong with you? I'll lay hands on you right now and you'll get healed!"

Once hope gets that strong, it becomes courage…and hope plus courage equals the spirit of faith in action!

Excerpt permission granted by
Eagle Mountain International Church, Inc.
aka:  Kenneth Copeland Ministries

Author Biography

Gloria Copeland
Web site: Kenneth Copeland Ministries
 
For the last 50 years Kenneth and Gloria Copeland have been passionately teaching Christians all over the world how to apply the principles of faith found in God's WORD to their lives.
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