Faith & Hope

Partners and Friends,

I am glad you have joined us this week! In the last blog we ended the Five D’s of the devil. Today we are going to talk about faith and hope - the weapons we use against the D’s of the devil. I am excited! Champions are overcomers. Teams that learn how to overcome obstacles will go on to win the championship game, and champions live in the Glory Days. As a champion church, we are in our Glory Days right now. We have been given every weapon we need to defeat the devil and his game plan to destroy us and the Glory of God operating in our lives.

I heard a minister just recently say that faith is a force. I like that! A force is described as a strength and a power to make something happen. God, by the force of faith, created the universe. He created man by this same force of faith, and now we have the same force of faith dwelling inside of us. Remember, as we said in an earlier blog, God has given us all the measure of faith. Faith is a force that can work for us over the power of the enemy.

Not only is faith a force, it is a law. Romans 3:27 says, “by the law of faith…” Just as gravity is a law, so is faith. Gravity works, period. Faith works, period! If I stand at the top of my stairs and drop a ball, it is going to fall. It will be pulled down to the ground by gravity. It will not float around in the air when I drop it. Once put in motion, faith works on my behalf.

The Bible gives us a great definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1. It says that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Not only do you see faith in action in this scripture, you see faith’s partner, hope. Hope defined is a confident expectation. Most of the time we look at hope as just holding on. Have you seen the meme of the kitten hanging from the tree branch with the caption underneath, “hanging in there”? That is not hope! Hope is a confidence that is expecting things to happen the way God said they will happen! Faith and hope combined can make a powerful team. Let’s look at it this way: faith is the firecracker in this situation, and hope is the thing that ignites faith. As I like to say it, faith is the firecracker and hope is the punk that lights the firecracker.

If you don’t have a confident expectation in God’s Word then you have no hope to light your faith.

When the devil sends the D’s of destruction your way, it is faith and hope that keep you looking to God for the answer instead of looking at the situation. Faith is the now-factor and hope will keep you standing in confident expectation. Just as we stated in earlier blogs, disappointment, dread, doubt, despair, etc. will come your way. You will feel these emotions at different times in your life, but remember, feeling these emotions does not mean you are out of faith. You will always have the measure of faith in you. It is just the plan of the enemy to move you out of faith. It is his plan to take the “punk of hope” (punk of confident expectation) out of your hand so you cannot light the firework of faith.  

The next time the devil sends disappointment your way, take out the punk of hope and firework of faith in response to his disappointment, and send the disappointment on its way.

-Coach Brim