PASTOR ANITA

Faith Versus Hope


"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen"
(Hebrews 11:1).

I nasmuch as there’s been so much teaching on the subject of faith, there’s something
very important I want to share with you today about faith and hope. Hope is not
faith, and faith is not hope. There’s a clear difference between “I believe for a miracle”
and “I have a miracle.” Hope is the passageway to faith but hope is not faith. While hope
looks to sometime in the future, faith is now. While hope presumes, saying, “I hope I will
receive my healing one day,” faith declares, “I am healed!”
When Abraham received the Word from the Lord that he would have a child, the
Bible says, “being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he
was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb:” (Romans
4:19). Indeed, he was at this time impotent and his wife was barren as well. Moreover,
they had both passed the procreation age. Nonetheless, Abraham refused to regard the
extraneous conditions. He had heard from the Lord; he believed Him and that settled it.
Abraham didn’t think God’s Word was a promise for sometime in the future, rather he
immediately started calling himself by his new name. Hope looks forward to the future,
but faith is in the now. Hope depends on a promissory note; faith lives in the reality of
the Word.
I know the God I serve and this is why I’m not afraid to stand on His Word. Faith is
the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. That means you see
what you desire before anyone else does and you possess it before it becomes physically
manifest. The Bible says in Hebrews 11:6 that without faith it is impossible to please
God. Therefore, there’s no other way to receive from God but by faith.

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F U RT H E R S T U DY : M AT T H E W 9:29; E PHESIANS 6:16

Rhapsody of Realities Topical Compendium Vol.2
 82