I hate the double-minded, but I love Your law. You are my hiding place and my shield. I hope in Your word. Depart from me, you evildoers, that I may keep the commandments of my God. Uphold me according to Your promise that I may live, and let me not be put to shame in my hope! Hold me up that I may be safe and have regard for Your statutes continually! You spurn all who go astray from Your statutes, for their cunning is in vain. All the wicked of the earth You discard like dross, therefore I love Your testimonies. My flesh trembles for fear of You, and I am afraid of Your judgments. (Verses 113-120) Italics, mine.
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Hebrews 11
Hope: to want something to happen or be true and to expect something to happen or be true. The opposite? Despair. Hope moves into faith when we know what we want and hope for is going to happen. What, as Christians kills faith and hope? Expectations. Our own. Calling hope faith when we have no real assurance God will do a specific thing we think He should.
Peter and John were going to pray in the temple in Jerusalem at three o'clock in the afternoon shortly after their experience of being filled with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. There is a gate at the temple called the Beautiful Gate because the bronze with which it was made sparkled like fire in the sun. Near the gate was a lame man, settled there by friends and family who had carried him to the temple at its busiest time of day for many years so that he could beg for money. He'd never walked. Not in all of his over forty years. Born with useless legs. He lived off the generosity of those who prayed each day at three. As Peter and John passed by, the man called out, "Please give me an offering!"
It caught Peter's attention. The man calling out, seemingly to anyone who would listen, not just to the two disciples of Jesus. So they stopped. Peter looked at beggar for a minute as he continued to call out to others as if he'd become accustomed to few people actually hearing his plea for money. Used to the fact that most never stopped. Maybe that's why he didn't see Peter and John standing next to him. "Look at us!" Peter said. Only then did the man notice them. Hopeful they would give him money. Hopeful he would get enough for that day to get him through until tomorrow. Hopeful they'd have mercy on his hopeless condition.
"We don't have any money," said Peter. "What I have, though, I'll give to you."
I don't know what despair initially oozed into the man's hope. I don't need anything else. They're wasting my time...in my way. Maybe. Maybe he didn't have time for despair this time. The next thing the man knew, Peter and John seized his right arm. Grabbed him and jerked him to his useless feet! "In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk!" He hadn't even hoped for this, much less had faith for it! He didn't go to afternoon prayers to be healed! Remade, really. As he'd never walked! Legs shriveled. Made in a moment muscled and strong! No time to wonder if it would really happen. Standing. Never before a possibility or hope...perhaps a dream, but after forty years...he'd learned to ask only for alms.
How did Peter and John know? They clearly didn't only hope the man would walk, they knew it. I don't have a definitive answer for that, by the way. But I think hope becoming faith is a matter of hearing from God. What if the man hadn't walked? Their hope would've been put to shame. He'd have fallen over in a heap, left to now hope to walk instead of hope for alms. A new expectation brought about by Christians who hoped he'd be well. And there were other beggars at Beautiful Gate. It's where they went. How did Peter and John know Jesus wanted to heal this man?
Hope is fragile. Faith is firm. It takes a word from God to cross over into the realm of certainty about a thing. We can be sure of the promises of God in the Word. Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ (Romans 10). We get into trouble as Christians when we expect God to fulfill our every hope. When, actually, He is our hope. Christ in us. There are things we don't have to hope for. Heaven. Provision. Salvation. Forgiveness. Power. Purpose. We are assured of these. Have evidence of them in our lives daily. How specifically those are worked out in our lives is what gives us trouble with hope. If it all doesn't work out the way we expected, we despair. Yet, unless God tells us in a way we know it will happen, we cannot expect Him to fulfill our desires our way. Somehow, overwhelmingly, Peter knew he could jerk the lame man up to his feet and in a moment he'd be given new legs. Somehow. By a word from Christ to him. And we've all experienced a thing that required God's intervention to create faith in us for a miracle to happen. Our salvation, if nothing beyond. I couldn't change my heart. I was without hope for that. But I believed that if I asked Jesus to come into my heart, He would. But that faith to believe came from Him. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And that is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2).
When Peter and John went into the temple with the man now healed, leaping and jumping and generally making a commotion about his healing, the people were amazed. Peter preached to the assembly gathered there about Jesus. "We didn't heal this man! Jesus did! The One you crucified!" All the while, the former beggar held onto them. Clutched the two disciples. Clung to them. I wonder if he thought it might go away--the healing. He might fall down. He'd never walked before. And it reminds me of this psalm. "Hold me up that I might live. Don't let this new hope prove a dream or only momentary. Now that You have healed me, keep me!" And I would echo, "Now that You have saved me, carry me. Keep me close that I might cling to You as one who cannot walk alone." I trust in the character and promises of Christ for me. I have specific hopes for myself and my family and friends. I'm learning, though, to give up the specific instructions I used to give to God on how He is to accomplish His dreams for us. When Jesus tells me that He will act in a specific way--gives me assurance that is His will--I will act on that gift of faith and pursue it. My hopes, though, I lay at His feet and wait for Jesus to do more than I could've ever dreamed. That I expect.
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Hebrews 11
Hope: to want something to happen or be true and to expect something to happen or be true. The opposite? Despair. Hope moves into faith when we know what we want and hope for is going to happen. What, as Christians kills faith and hope? Expectations. Our own. Calling hope faith when we have no real assurance God will do a specific thing we think He should.
Peter and John were going to pray in the temple in Jerusalem at three o'clock in the afternoon shortly after their experience of being filled with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. There is a gate at the temple called the Beautiful Gate because the bronze with which it was made sparkled like fire in the sun. Near the gate was a lame man, settled there by friends and family who had carried him to the temple at its busiest time of day for many years so that he could beg for money. He'd never walked. Not in all of his over forty years. Born with useless legs. He lived off the generosity of those who prayed each day at three. As Peter and John passed by, the man called out, "Please give me an offering!"
It caught Peter's attention. The man calling out, seemingly to anyone who would listen, not just to the two disciples of Jesus. So they stopped. Peter looked at beggar for a minute as he continued to call out to others as if he'd become accustomed to few people actually hearing his plea for money. Used to the fact that most never stopped. Maybe that's why he didn't see Peter and John standing next to him. "Look at us!" Peter said. Only then did the man notice them. Hopeful they would give him money. Hopeful he would get enough for that day to get him through until tomorrow. Hopeful they'd have mercy on his hopeless condition.
"We don't have any money," said Peter. "What I have, though, I'll give to you."
I don't know what despair initially oozed into the man's hope. I don't need anything else. They're wasting my time...in my way. Maybe. Maybe he didn't have time for despair this time. The next thing the man knew, Peter and John seized his right arm. Grabbed him and jerked him to his useless feet! "In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk!" He hadn't even hoped for this, much less had faith for it! He didn't go to afternoon prayers to be healed! Remade, really. As he'd never walked! Legs shriveled. Made in a moment muscled and strong! No time to wonder if it would really happen. Standing. Never before a possibility or hope...perhaps a dream, but after forty years...he'd learned to ask only for alms.
How did Peter and John know? They clearly didn't only hope the man would walk, they knew it. I don't have a definitive answer for that, by the way. But I think hope becoming faith is a matter of hearing from God. What if the man hadn't walked? Their hope would've been put to shame. He'd have fallen over in a heap, left to now hope to walk instead of hope for alms. A new expectation brought about by Christians who hoped he'd be well. And there were other beggars at Beautiful Gate. It's where they went. How did Peter and John know Jesus wanted to heal this man?
Hope is fragile. Faith is firm. It takes a word from God to cross over into the realm of certainty about a thing. We can be sure of the promises of God in the Word. Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ (Romans 10). We get into trouble as Christians when we expect God to fulfill our every hope. When, actually, He is our hope. Christ in us. There are things we don't have to hope for. Heaven. Provision. Salvation. Forgiveness. Power. Purpose. We are assured of these. Have evidence of them in our lives daily. How specifically those are worked out in our lives is what gives us trouble with hope. If it all doesn't work out the way we expected, we despair. Yet, unless God tells us in a way we know it will happen, we cannot expect Him to fulfill our desires our way. Somehow, overwhelmingly, Peter knew he could jerk the lame man up to his feet and in a moment he'd be given new legs. Somehow. By a word from Christ to him. And we've all experienced a thing that required God's intervention to create faith in us for a miracle to happen. Our salvation, if nothing beyond. I couldn't change my heart. I was without hope for that. But I believed that if I asked Jesus to come into my heart, He would. But that faith to believe came from Him. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And that is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2).
When Peter and John went into the temple with the man now healed, leaping and jumping and generally making a commotion about his healing, the people were amazed. Peter preached to the assembly gathered there about Jesus. "We didn't heal this man! Jesus did! The One you crucified!" All the while, the former beggar held onto them. Clutched the two disciples. Clung to them. I wonder if he thought it might go away--the healing. He might fall down. He'd never walked before. And it reminds me of this psalm. "Hold me up that I might live. Don't let this new hope prove a dream or only momentary. Now that You have healed me, keep me!" And I would echo, "Now that You have saved me, carry me. Keep me close that I might cling to You as one who cannot walk alone." I trust in the character and promises of Christ for me. I have specific hopes for myself and my family and friends. I'm learning, though, to give up the specific instructions I used to give to God on how He is to accomplish His dreams for us. When Jesus tells me that He will act in a specific way--gives me assurance that is His will--I will act on that gift of faith and pursue it. My hopes, though, I lay at His feet and wait for Jesus to do more than I could've ever dreamed. That I expect.
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