Hope Against Hope

Probably one of the most amazing characteristics of the Spirit of God is hope.  We so glibly say we hope this or we hope that.  Recently I was talking with a dear friend  and he was going to do a grave side service for a man that lived across the road from his former home.  I asked him if the man was saved and he said, “well I hope so, but while he lived across the road from me he was an alcoholic, but in his later years his daughter had him in church when the doors were open, so all I can say is I hope so.”  Of course we know going to church never makes us a Believer.  Getting baptized in water never makes us a Believer, but when we put these religious duties together with a personal confession of faith in Jesus (and not the church or some denomination) and we can see some Spiritual fruit, well then we can say we believe they were a Believer.  You know it is really hard to fake a true conversion from darkness into the light. Your life just speaks of the saving grace of God.  People are not fooled when someone really comes to the LORD.  You can truly see and hear a true change in their lives.  But, how about a conversion to religion?  Oh yes, people are easily fooled with this.  It is easy to convince someone that they have turned their life around by their faithful attendance at Sunday service, by dropping their monthly tithes into the offering plate, or being the first person to volunteer to help the pastor out with a problem. But, unless we have had a real relationship with the LORD, I mean where we have had a  true experience in the LORD, where He has taught us spiritual truths out from our day to day living then we are hoping against hope.  The very best we can do if we have NOT had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ  is to hope the person who shared the plan of salvation with us is telling the truth.  You see if our hope is not in Christ Jesus then our hope is in the words of the person who told us about Christ.  Now that is NOT the way it is supposed to be.  We hear the plan of salvation from someone, but that is not where things end.  We hear and receive and that is it.  Oh no we hear, we receive, and then we become the work of God. If not then all we are doing is hoping in something that we have been told.  If so best we can do is hope the person is telling us the truth. We all know “the heart is deceitful above all things,” Brother Jeremiah tell us so in verse 17:9, but do we know the verses that lead up to such a bold statement?  If we trust in man we shall be cursed, but if we hold in God we shall be saved.  “Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD.  ⁶ For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited. ⁷ Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is. ⁸ For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.”  (Jeremiah 17:5-8) Then with these truths in our heart we read,  ^:“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”  (Jeremiah 17:9) If we do not get verses 5-8 then we will not really understand what the Holy Spirit is telling us in verse 9.  Our truth must not be in man (in all things), but in God.  Here we read about the heart.  Unless God can work on our heart our hope for salvation will never happen.  Our salvation is not us working  (as most religions and denominations teach)  for God, but us becoming the work of God. Please notice the verse above ends with a question.  Now verse 10 answers the question,  “I the LORD search the heart  . . .”  (Jeremiah 17:10)  It is the LORD who knows our heart (most people Christians included do not know their own heart) because He searches our heart and because of His searching He knows us better than ourselves.  Paul tells us, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: ⁹ Not of works, lest any man should boast. ¹⁰  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.’  (Ephesians 2:8-10)  Those “good works” that have been created in Christ Jesus is not the good works we are to do for the LORD and our fellow man, but the works, those good works that God brings into our lives that conforms us into the character and nature of Jesus Christ. Those works that develop in us a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  Now these “good works” can be painful at times, but they are meant to kill our flesh and make us more like Christ.  Here is a list of Paul’s “good works.” “Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. ²⁵ Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; ²⁶ In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea ,in perils among false brethren;²⁷ In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. ²⁸Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily ,the care of all the churches.²⁹ Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not?”  (2 Corinthians 11:24-29)  Yet Paul endured these “good works.” Walking with the LORD can kill us, but that is God’s idea because He know if we can die then He can live through us. How much faith do we need to be saved?  Just enough to believe God raised Jesus from the dead and if we too die then God will raise us from the dead.  I was sitting in a main stream church one night and I looked around and saw the older folks in the church.  Maybe the LORD wanted me to just see the older crowd. The LORD then spoke to me and said, “for these to become a Believer they must realize everyone in their lives have lied to them.  Every minister or priest every religious person in their lives have lied to them.”  I then thought even a tougher hill to get over is if they were raised in a certain religion they must realize their parents (even though probably unwittingly) also have lied to them. Who among us would want to believe their parents lied to us? This revelation for most, especially if older, is a bridge too far to cross to be able to come to salvation in Christ Jesus. Once we get stuck in patterns and traditions  of life it is almost impossible to pull ourselves out.  It takes a hungry and seeking heart and the power of God. Once we establish a habit (they say if we do something  only seven times) it takes great power to kick  (must not do something 21 times to break the habit) the habit and free ourselves from the bondage. I remember when I was growing up (in my teens) and while in the Navy I smoked cigars, cigarettes and even a pipe.  I would switch back and forth between cigars and cigarettes then while in the Navy I met a sophisticated doctor who gave me a pipe, a very expensive pipe (I was changing my image, more suave, and better for my health) so I picked up the habit until Karen one day told me to clean my pipes and I did not so she cleaned them for me; by throwing every pipe, my tobacco, my pipe lighter, my pipe rack, everything pipe related away.  I went back to cigarettes until the weekend of my 40th birthday (God’s timing) I spent the weekend in a cantonment bunker at a National Guard Base in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.  God was with me and arranged this time for me to quit (with His strength)  I did.  Hope is not something magical we get from God, but is worked in us through our life experiences. And if we never have these experiences then the best we can do is “hope against hope” and that what we believe  is based on what we have been told, is the truth, and we are staking our eternal soul on another person’s revelation.  It is like reading another man’s writings (instead of the Bible) and base our salvation on their writing.  You see this often in the world of Christian academia. Oh no my friend another man’s revelation will never will teach us what we need to know about God for ourselves.  As much as I love to read and hear the works of Charles Haun  (and others) they are experiences from God for Charles Haun.  Hope is worked in us as we experience God then there is no hoping it all becomes a reality now that is something our soul can hope in. Written by David Stahl