Hope and Faith A Powerful Combination
Hope and faith work together in the scriptures. You can’t have faith without hope. Hebrews 11:1 “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Faith gives substance or brings into reality what you are hoping for. Hebrews 11:10,11,19,29.
What exactly does hope mean? The word hope in the Greek is: elpizo, pronounced el-pid’-zo, and it means to expect, trust, hopefully trust in, and have confidence in, favorable and confident expectation, happy anticipation of good. So having hope, is to have a confident expectation of good in what you are hoping for. Hope is out in the future. Faith is now.
What does the word faith mean? The word faith in the Greek is: pistis, pronounced pis’-tis, and it means firm persuasion, a conviction based upon hearing, trust, trust-worthiness, fidelity, what is believed, the contents of belief, an assurance. So having faith is to have a firm persuasion based upon a conviction and assurance of the trust-worthiness of the subject believed.
We use our faith to take what we hope for in the future and bring it into the now, or present. Romans 4:13-21. Genesis 17:1-22. There was a man that God called out of his home land, to a place where he would direct him to. God promised him the land as an inheritance. God changed Abraham’s name from Abram to Abraham, and called him a father of many nations. He promised him that he’d have a son that would be born from his wife Sarah. Abraham applied his faith to what he hoped for and God brought him the son that he promised. God changed Sarah’s name from Sarai to Sarah and told her that she would be pregnant with the promised son by her husband Abraham. This was a man who was 99 years old when God promised him this. Sarah was 89. Abraham and Sarah used their faith to believe God for what he had promised to come to pass. Hebrews 11:11-12
They believed in what God had said and used their faith to trust God to bring it to pass. We can hope all we want to, we won’t get what it is that we are hoping for, until we apply faith to our hope. Once we apply faith to our hope, we bring what we desire from the future into the now. Hope and faith must work together, in order to get what we are hoping for in God.
Faith and hope are a powerful combination in the things of God and we can’t do without either.
Scriptures where hope and faith are working together: Colossians 1:23; 1 Corinthians 13:13; 1 Thessalonians 1:3; 1 Thessalonians 5:8; 1 Peter 1:21; Romans 5:2.
