Faith versus Hope

     I was sitting here thinking about the many things have happened in my life in the spiritual realm and I began to thank the Lord for the blessings in my life.  I was pondering what exactly having faith means.
     Many of us mistaken hope for faith and are sorely disappointed, always on a roller coaster of highs and lows because some things we hope for don't materialize in our walk with the Lord and we blame ourselves and say we didn't have enough faith and then we try to muster something up out of thin air to create more faith.  Then we think ourselves as less than those around us that seemingly appear to have super faith in their lives.
The definition of hope from the dictionary is: to cherish a desire with anticipation, to desire with expectation of obtainment, to expect with confidence.  Hope is the state which promotes the belief in good outcomes related to events and circumstances in one's life. Hope is the "feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best" or the act of "looking forward to something with desire and reasonable confidence" or "feeling that something desired may happen.

Don't get me wrong we need to have hope. 

2 Corinthians 1:20 He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us

 

Hope keeps us going, hope gives us a desire to continue in our walk, hope gives us a reason to move forward day by day following Jesus expecting great things with confidence.  But the difference of hope versus faith is Faith is a concrete belief that our feet rest on and it keeps us balanced, hope is an action we take to help us move forward day by day.

Hebrews 11:1-2  Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

When we really enter in to a relationship with the Lord and faith develops in us, we truly understand that we are not only hoping things will work out the way we wish they would, we are completely putting our trust in the Lord that no matter what happens, even when it goes against what we have been praying for that we trust him completely that He is the creator of all the world, the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end and He is in full control.

Romans10: 17 So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Faith is a tangible supernatural manifestation of our intimate relationship with our Father in Heaven.  The more we get to know Him through His Word the closer we get to Him and the greater our Faith. He is the Creator of all things and we trust Him for every aspect of our lives.