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3 Essential Ingredients For Hope

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Could hope be one of the most underrated virtues? Hope makes God’s top three list (the love, faith, and hope mentioned in 1 Corinthians 13:13).

The greatest virtue is love. But where would love be without any hope? Love would be an empty promise–much like worldly love. Fortunately, love always hopes.

Hope is confidence in God’s amazing promises–specifically the ones that you can’t see come to fruition immediately. As Christians, we hope in God’s promise of eternal life. We possess eternal life and yet we continue to experience death and suffering for a time.

A Recipe for Hope

How does one experience more hope? God is the source of everything good, but what must be present in your life so that you can feel hope? For hope to thrive you need three attitudes:

  1. Freedom
  2. Surrender
  3. Trust

Freedom

A slave with no chance of being free one day can’t begin to hope. Thankfully, you are no longer a slave. Christ has set you free.

So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law.

Galatians 5:1 NLT

Think for a moment. In what ways are you still acting like a slave? Your cage door is open, but do you live as though you are trapped inside? Fear is a primary indicator.

Hope and freedom bring peace. You can’t be peaceful and fearful at the same time. To fear is to live in the reality of a hopeless slave. You are not a slave, so you can stop thinking like one.

Surrender

Surrender acknowledges that God is the ultimate source of good. To have freedom without surrender is to live with the delusion that you are self-sufficient.

You might think that freedom and surrender are mutually exclusive, when in fact they support each other perfectly. Surrender to God produces true freedom. The true freedom you possess is only possible when you surrender to God’s reality.

If you are not surrendering to God, then you are living in the alternate reality of idolatry. You might feel free initially, but eventually, you will realize you are living in a cage as a slave.

Trust

To be able to surrender to God, you must first trust Him. Trusting God allows you to surrender to Him; surrendering to God produces true freedom. With true freedom, you will experience a powerful, unwavering hope. This hope nourishes your soul.

To hope you must trust God will keep His promises to you.

Trusting is difficult in an environment that is corrupt and decaying. But this is the only world we have. It’s easy to slip into agreeing with hopelessness and distrust. It’s easy to mistrust God and fear. But none of it is mandatory.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart;
    do not depend on your own understanding.
Seek his will in all you do,
    and he will show you which path to take.

Proverbs 3:5-6 NLT

God is saying there is something more true about trusting in faith (without having our own understanding) than trusting with evidence and proof. Trust God because He’s your good parent. Look beyond your immediate environment and trust Him no matter what is happening around you.

Your trust leads to surrender and freedom. Then you’ll have real hope.

Image by mcmurryjulie from Pixabay

Healthy Oneness

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Confusion about oneness creates a substantial burden for relationships. If you believe oneness means you must eliminate your individual identity, your relationship will struggle to thrive. Instead of having opinions you’ll only have compliance. Instead of strengthening your relationship, you’ll create weaknesses.

God says husband and wife become one flesh. One flesh has at least two meanings. On a literal, physical level, one flesh refers to the joining of two bodies in sexual union. On a figurative, spiritual level, one flesh refers to becoming a unified family.

This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.

Genesis 2:24 NLT

Both levels imply coming together in a unified partnership that isn’t meant to be separated (until death). Both are illustrations of the deeper, permanent reality of Christ and the Church.

Note that two being a unified one is different than two changing into one. A unified one allows closeness while retaining individual definition. A married man and woman don’t lose their God-given identities; they gain experience in physical and spiritual oneness that can’t be experienced any other way.

I like to put it this way. A husband and wife are on the same team and should act as one to accomplish their goals. What is a win for one is a win for the other. A loss for one is a loss for the other.

This allows for individual choices. God will judge a man on how good a husband he is. God will judge a woman on how good a wife she is. But God doesn’t make one responsible for the other’s poor choices. God doesn’t directly judge you for how good your marriage is–only indirectly through your performance because it is within your control.

In a tennis match, if one player is significantly more skilled than the other, the game won’t look very good, but each individual can still be judged on their skill and character while playing.

This isn’t a free pass to act only in your best interest. You should act both in your best interest and also in the best interest of your partner. God expects you to give up your demand to have life go the way you want it. God opposes the proud. Insisting on your way at all costs is usually selfish.

Two strong individuals make a strong marriage. One dominant and one weak person will create a marriage that is less strong than the couple’s average strength. In contrast, the synergy from two strong individuals who have learned how to cooperate will exceed the output of two strong individuals working apart.

Learning how to cooperate as a team takes time and effort. Marital oneness includes a physical and spiritual closeness, so it is more than what being on a sports team feels like. At the same time, it has to be less than what being in heaven will be like.

What has your experience with oneness been like? Are you expecting too much or too little from your relationship?

For more on oneness, take a look at How Two Identities Become One. The image associated with it provides a clear picture of what two as one should look like.

Image #286346030 licensed from Adobe Stock

How To Grow More Confident

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When I go running for more than a few minutes, my focus changes. As fatigue sets in, I have to motivate myself to keep going. I become more aware of the finish line. How much farther do I have to go? Will I be able to make it without stopping?

How in touch are you with how you are doing emotionally? What if I told you there is an easy way to find out and build your endurance and confidence at the same time?

When I become fatigued while running, it’s nearly impossible to not notice the strain on my body. But what is more interesting is how my physical health and my emotional health surface together.

God made our brains to store similar experiences together. Running triggers my brain to focus on the theme of whatever is desperately concerning me. When my body protests because of the physical strain, my brain brings into my awareness my most serious emotional concerns. I become flooded with what matters most to me.

To grow in endurance, you have to test your limits. The testing identifies weak areas that need strengthening. Growth is stressful, usually requiring an upfront investment for a future payoff. Growth costs you your immediate state of relaxation.

But the stress is worth the reward because God gives us so much when we trust Him.

Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory. We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.

Romans 5:1-5 NLT

God is saying your problems and trials lead to a satisfying, secure, and confident hope. The development of character is the proof of your salvation–your entrance into heaven and eternal life.

The next time you want to feel better, try wearing yourself out exercising (or whatever works for you). Then note what surfaces in your mind. That could be an area of weakness that God is working on so you can feel more confident.

We see life as a painful struggle, but God sees it as endurance training. And endurance results in many good things such as peace, confidence, and character.

Image by skeeze from Pixabay

Improve Your Communication

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How easily can you put yourself in another’s shoes? How possible is it for you to see life from another person’s perspective?

When communication is poor in a relationship, it usually has little to do with choosing the right words. Most people have a decent vocabulary. Communication problems come from:

  • An (often stubborn) desire to go in a particular direction (that is different than the other’s)
  • An inability to see life beyond your own perspective
  • Assuming other people think and feel the way you do

We see things not as they are, but as we are. Because it is the ‘I’ behind the ‘eye’ that does the seeing.

Anaïs Nin

If you’ve never seen a four-legged animal, you’ll probably have a hard time understanding someone’s love for a dog.

Your ability to understand your world is limited by your experiences and your identity. You can always get new experiences, but you can't get a new identity. However, new experiences will help you understand your identity. Click To Tweet

You’ve heard the expression, “get on the same page,” right? All this means is having an experience of the same thing. Even after this, communication requires work because every person is different. Each person looks at the same dog, but sees, feels, and responds differently.

As much as being on the same page is helpful, it requires a tremendous amount of effort because there are so many experiences that haven’t been formed at the same time. One person might have experienced a dog bite when they were 8 years old. Another person in their twenties might call their dog their best friend. How would these two people get on the same page? As you can see, there’s plenty of room for bias and plenty of reasons why they would struggle to communicate.

Let’s pretend you have an awesome camera that takes super high-resolution pictures and a low-def monitor. What kind of experience will you have looking at the picture?

What if we switch it up? What if you have a super high-resolution monitor, but you take a picture with a low-res camera? Same experience, right? Both pictures will look distorted.

In this example, the picture is the common experience and the monitor represents each person’s identity. The same picture will look different on different monitors.

The monitor can’t change. While you can change, you are limited like the monitor to what you can perceive at any given moment. God hard-wired your identity to see life in a specific way. He doesn’t intend for you to ever see it exactly like anyone else.

This brings us to a plan to communicate better. To improve your communication:

  • Have more experiences; each one changes you and helps you understand
  • Have more shared experiences; each one gets you closer to being on the same page
  • Practice describing what you see to each other, but realize you’ll never get it perfect, only close enough
  • Recognize each person sees the same experiences differently
  • Recognize each person has different motives and desires
  • Recognize each person is unique and will always only see life through the lens of their God-given identity
  • Be patient with the process; the best understanding develops over a long time

When all else seems to fail, there is love and empathy. Love overcomes the frustration from the lack of ability to know what it is like to be someone else. No one else has ever been you, so they can’t know for sure what it’s like. But you can empathize because everyone knows what it is like to feel pain and discomfort and then experience peace.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 NIV

Peace and comfort are universal experiences.

Image by Ryan McGuire from Pixabay

Are You Blind Or Lacking Vision?

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I can see and hear well for the most part. But I was wondering recently what it must be like to be blind. What is it like to walk across a room without being able to see?

Actually, I know first hand what this is like because I’ve bumped into many things walking in my bedroom at night (with the lights out so I don’t disturb my wife).

Would walking be easier if I could see a little, or not see at all? My first thought is seeing something is better than nothing. But then I would be more tempted to rely on my efforts. I could be so focused on what I can see, that I’d forget to consider God.

Does God want you to trust Him more like a completely blind person? If you can’t see clearly, God certainly doesn’t want you to squint and guess. When you can see, you should use all that God has given you to make a decision. But sometimes you really can’t see much of anything even when you see a lot. What you see isn’t helpful or it’s irrelevant. It’s noise.

Maybe it’s okay that God asks you to walk by faith. Maybe you can blindly trust Him when you have no clue what He is doing. And maybe it’s better that way.

God is always with you. He is always present, but you might need to walk a path that doesn’t make sense–like Abraham had to do when God asked him to sacrifice his son.

Walking while blind (physically) might actually provide the most opportunity to put your full and purest trust into God. Can you acknowledge that you’re completely dependent upon God? When you can’t see anything with your physical eyes, you will have no choice but to rely on your spiritual eyes.

Depending on how you look at it, that might sound uncomfortably vulnerable, or it might sound blissfully peaceful. What does it sound like to you?

Here are some scriptures to consider: 2 Corinthians 5:7, Proverbs 3:5-6, Hebrews 11:1, John 20:29, 2 Corinthians 4:4, 4:18, Mark 4:12. I recently wrote an answer on Quora about looking but not really seeing (Matthew 13:10–13).

Image by Jiří Rotrekl from Pixabay

Which Judgment Will You Face?

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If you’ve been a Christian for a while, you’ve probably heard the saying, “if you are born once, you’ll die twice, but if you are born twice you’ll only die once.” Christians and non-Christians will have vastly different experiences after they die physically. The variable is spiritual life or death. Everyone dies physically, but only non-Christians face spiritual death.

Just like there are two states of spiritual health, there will be two different experiences of judgment at the end of our physical lives. God will judge believers and unbelievers differently.

Judgment for Unbelievers

When unsaved people die, they face God’s judgment for their sin. Without Jesus to intervene, God will judge them guilty. He will hold their sin against them. The judgment will be straightforward. Those whose names aren’t found written in the Book of Life will be sentenced to the second death (Revelation 20:11-15). There won’t be an appeal process, but only a “go directly to jail and do not collect $200.”

Judgment for Believers

In 2 Corinthians chapter 5, Paul talks about the judgment of believers.

For we must all stand before Christ to be judged. We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in this earthly body.

2 Corinthians 5:10 NLT

Is this verse talking about both saved and unsaved people? Is it meant to instill fear in believers that Jesus will judge their sin and find their name isn’t written in the Book of Life? No, the context of verse 10 is not discussing the state of a person’s salvation (read verses 1-9).

Some people use this verse to argue that no one can know until the moment of judgment if they are entering heaven. They argue that this is necessary to prevent people from being lazy after they become saved. If a person knows for sure they will be saved, why would they try to be a better person? What incentive do they have to stop sinning? But this goes against many scriptures (Titus 1:1-2, 3:7, Romans 8:1, John 10:27-28, and John 5:24, to name a few).

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

John 5:24 ESV

Saved people will bypass the unbeliever’s judgment because Jesus knows their names are written in the Book of Life. They will be judged righteous based on Jesus’s record. Saved people will be judged, but not as to whether they will end up in heaven or hell. Everyone who is saved goes to heaven. The believer’s judgment will be more like an awards ceremony.

Instead of God using fear to motivate good behavior, He uses love. God empowers the believer to succeed. If a person refuses to try, obey, and love, this is evidence that they aren’t saved. Those who are genuine believers can obey and love by the power of the Holy Spirit (read 1 John 2).

You have a forever priest, Jesus, who is able to empower you to succeed.

But because Jesus lives forever, his priesthood lasts forever. Therefore he is able, once and forever, to save those who come to God through him. He lives forever to intercede with God on their behalf.

Hebrews 7:24-25 NLT

Now, what about the awards ceremony? God is going to judge us believers for what we do with the talents God gives us (Matthew 25:14–30). This will be positive overall, however, this is also where we get to see if our work holds up to the test.

Anyone who builds on that foundation may use a variety of materials—gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay, or straw. But on the judgment day, fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done. The fire will show if a person’s work has any value. If the work survives, that builder will receive a reward. But if the work is burned up, the builder will suffer great loss. The builder will be saved, but like someone barely escaping through a wall of flames.

1 Corinthians 3:12-15 NLT (my emphasis added)

So, believers will be saved, but they will be judged for the quality of their work. If you don’t build well, you may lose your reward, but not your life.

I like this because I can experience both the security of knowing God’s love and provision for me and also the challenge of expressing my will to be all that God made me to be. I want to cooperate with God during the sanctification process. I want to stay connected with Jesus so I can bear fruit.

Even so, the purpose of knowing about the reward is not to make it into a free-for-all competition. It’s not like there’s only one first place and we need to fight each other for it. Instead, based on the Parable of the Talents, we are each to give our all according to the gifts and abilities God has given us.

You are running a race in which the only competition is yourself.

You should feel positively motivated to serve God will all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. If you’re not, what are you missing?

Image by SidLitke from Pixabay
For more on judgment, consider this article I found.