TEEN TREE OF LIFE
THE DOCTRINE OF HOPE
Part 3
July 2, 2017
BEFORE we begin, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, take a moment to name your sins to God the Father. This will allow you to be filled with the power of The Holy Spirit as you read this booklet (EPH 5:18 & 1JO 1:9). IF YOU HAVE never believed in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you have that opportunity right now. Simply tell God the Father that you are believing on His Son Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. If you make that decision, you are now a believer and will always be a child of God! When you die, you will spend eternity with Him forever in heaven! (JOH 3:16 & ACT 16:31).
There are three types of hope in the Christian life. The first one is the hope at Salvation for eternal life. Now remember, this is not a wish for eternal life. It is an absolute confidence that, without a doubt, you have eternal life as a result of Christ’s Work on The Cross and it can never be taken away. When you’ve attained the reality of Salvation, you don’t need to hope for it.
The second type of hope is the hope after salvation which keeps you motivated. This is the hope of reaching Spiritual Maturity and receiving the blessings promised to you in Spiritual Adulthood. This hope is a confident expectation of the future. This second hope takes more devotion than the first one. When a believer gets to the point at which he/she has this second type of hope, the reality turns into motivation to grow as a Christian.
The third type of hope is the hope that in Eternity Future, at the Judgment Seat of Christ, you will receive fantastic rewards! This hope is a great motivator to serve God, which is the very purpose for which we were created!! Interesting to note, is this is also the purpose for which Satan was created but deviated from. How do we know if we love God? We know if we love Him by ministering to (serving) Hs saints. Always remember: For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints. (HEB 6:10) The Message Bible translates this verse very well: God doesn’t miss anything. He knows perfectly well all the love you’ve shown him by helping needy Christians, and that you keep at it. And now I want each of you to extend that same intensity toward a full-bodied hope, and keep at it till the finish. Don’t drag your feet. Be like those who stay the course with committed faith and then get everything promised to them.
Paul loved God very, very much and said he would go through whatever he had to, to reach Spiritual Maturity and to glorify Him. But in order to reach Spiritual Maturity and glorify God, you have to go through suffering and still stick with His Plan! This is how you receive blessings. Such blessings in time lead to blessings in eternity – blessings with which we worship The Lord Jesus Christ on His throne!
If you have no Bible doctrine in your soul, you have no hope; if you have no hope, you have no confidence; if you have no confidence, you have no Spiritual Growth. And without Spiritual Growth, you cannot have personal love for God; and where there is no personal love for God, there is no impersonal love for all mankind. Do you see how it’s all connected!
Hope requires endurance and patience. If you try to take short cuts or side roads around suffering, you will NOT reach Spiritual Maturity. Suffering is as much a part of our Christian walk as faith! Look at PHIL 1:29: For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake… God has designed undeserved sufferings for our advancement in the Spiritual Life. And in suffering, what keeps us going is hope!
Positive volition toward doctrine produces an energy and vigor that keeps you moving forward in hope/confidence. Disasters, pressures, and tests are brought in to see whether or not you really want to live the Spiritual Life. We are taught that we will need courage with regard to our anticipation of the future. Our hope will be tested! Strength and courage come from concentration on God’s Word and using it when under pressure. A trained soldier does not turn and run when faced with the heat of the battle! Instead, he relies on his training. It’s the same way in the Christian life.
Do you know what God’s Integrity is? His Integrity combines the Divine Attributes of Righteousness and Justice to form His Holiness. This is the totality of Divine Perfection and the Foundation of God’s Throne: Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; Lovingkindness and truth [integrity] go before You. (PSA 89:14.) Well, hope anticipates God’s Integrity with regard to the future. The amount of confidence you have in God’s Integrity is the amount of hope you have in your life. All the various times in your life when you operated in hope or had confidence in God established a strong cord of faith.
God is the Author of Hope but any hope you have is only a potential until you learn enough of the right Bible doctrine to make that hope a reality. Hope has to do with trusting in God’s Word. A great example is Abraham’s hope in God’s Promise to give him an heir. Without becoming weak in faith he [Abraham] contemplated his own body, now as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah’s womb… And though Abraham and Sara failed and entered into their own plans at times, they rebounded and continued forward in the Hope of God’s Promise.
Our hope of reaching Spiritual Maturity and receiving rewards at the Judgment Seat of Christ should be an absolute confidence!! Our hope should be both sure and steadfast and the anchor of our souls: We who have run for our very lives to God have every reason to grab the promised hope with both hands and never let go. It’s an unbreakable spiritual lifeline, reaching past all appearances right to the very presence of God where Jesus, running on ahead of us, has taken up his permanent post as high priest for us… (HEB 6:19-20) The Message Bible
Good expectations originate from metabolized doctrine circulating in the soul. Bad expectations result from emotional revolt of the soul, being locked in negative volition, and having blackout of the soul, and scar tissue of the soul taking control. There is nothing more pitiful in life than to live it with no hope for the future. And when reaching the dying stage of life, there is nothing worse than to be filled with fear and regret rather than hope and excitement of the coming Eternal State. Only when we execute God’s Plan, throughout our lives, can we have absolute hope of the blessings we will receive when we stand before Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in eternity.