In my previous blog I began to discuss the importance of hope in the life of a christian,and how it is found only in the word of God.
I would like to begin this second part by reiterating this once again.
For many Christians the Word of God is not their only and ultimate source of hope but rather their hope is far too often bound to their circumstances instead.
This is evident because when their circumstances give them cause for hope they are full of hope but when their circumstances appear hopeless they easily forsake hope.
If the focus of our attention is upon our circumstances then our hope will indeed be very movable.
Circumstances change and we often find ourselves perplexed by them and unable to change them.
This is one of the reasons that so many in our society believe that if they can win the lottery then their lives would change for the better.
They feel boxed in and powerless to change their circumstances and think that the sudden acquisition of wealth will change that,whereas in reality it will not.

Many people have an illusion of wealth as decreasing their problems whereas the truth is that it will increase their level of cares and concerns.
Wealth can never create hope because only Gods Word can do that.
In fact some of the wealthiest people in history have been the most miserable and hopeless.
When we know that God is good and that his promises have been given to us to believe; and when we walk in the light of those promises and believe that God will be faithful to His promises no matter what the changing circumstances of our lives may be, then we will have begun to tap into an enduring hope that cannot be shaken.
As this year progresses I believe that we need to be not only a people of hope but also a people of faith, for faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen.
As we develop a firm foundation of hope in our lives we lay the ground for faith to grow up and be strong.
Again there seem to be so many misconceptions about what faith is.
The most important thing that we need to know however is that whenever the new testament speaks of faith or of our believing it makes reference to this being of the heart.
If hope is that which affects our thought processes, how we think about our future, faith is the God given capacity to believe which comes from the heart.
God has dealt to every man the measure of faith the bible says, and that faith is the gift of God.
However many people struggle greatly in this area because they are trying to believe things with the mind rather then with the heart.
That is also why faith is the substance of things hoped for.
We hope first; that is we train our minds to focus on the promises of God and not to be daunted by the evidence of our circumstances which is most often to the contrary.
In doing so this makes a way for faith to come and it is as we believe with our heart that we lay hold of the needed answer from God.
Jesus said in mark 11 22 24" Whoever says to this mountain, "Be removed and be cast into the sea," and does not doubt in his heart but believes that those things which he says will come to pass he shall have whatever he says.
Therefore I say to you whatever things you desire when you pray believe that you receive them and you shall have them."
Notice that we are to believe in our heart.
What does this mean?
Believing in the heart is that quality of absolute trust and assurance that what God has said is true for God cannot lie and the confidence that His word will come to pass.
Really it is in essence a confidence that rests and cannot be convinced otherwise.
And this faith emerges and grows as an unassailable assurance as we persistently and consciously feed upon Gods Word and believe it.
Many people feel daunted when it comes to the area of faith because they often misunderstand precisely how it comes.
"So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. " Romans 10, 17
How does faith come?
It comes as we hear the word of God.
I feel that this is important to state because often a person may say that they believe this but in fact be looking somewhere else for faith to come.
Someone may say for instance "Well I am going to pray about this particular need I have and ask God to give me more faith."
I certainly believe in the validity of prayer however there is simply no single example anywhere in the new testament where we are told that we are to pray for more faith.
Rather prayer is the place where we exercise our faith.
Similarly someone may believe that their faith will grow through the tests and trails that they endure.
Once again that is not what the bible teaches.
Certainly our faith is tested by persevering through suffering and it is refined and proven genuine, but faith does not come by trails but by our hearing the word of God.
Therefore as we feed diligently upon the word of god in our hearts and minds our faith will grow and it will be further tested and strengthened and purified by those things that we suffer.
However if we are not feeding our faith by hearing the word of God then we simply will not be able to respond to the trails we go through with an attitude of faith,and will succumb to despondency and discouragement.
When one brings up the subject of faith it usually elicits two basic responses.
One response is to feel condemned because a person may feel themselves to be a failure in this area and lacking in faith.
The second is the person who may say "I do have faith and yet they know that their faith needs to grow.
That would be the position of every christian but I mean to say that the response of some Christians to this subject is a more open acknowledgement of their need to grow in faith (which is what every one of us should have) but often they feel lacking in confidence regarding the faith that God has already given to them.
Jesus was asked once by his disciples to increase their faith and his response was to say "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed you would say to this mulberry tree be uprooted from here to there and it would obey you."
In other words use what faith you have, learn to exercise it and it will produce results.
As I quoted at the beginning of this blog the scripture states that "God has dealt to every man the measure of faith" and now he requires us to use the measure of faith that he has already given to us in order to get more.
The difficulty that many Christians have is that they are lacking the confidence to release the faith that is already inside of them,rather than not having any faith to begin.
Use what you have and feed it to make it grow.
The reason I believe that a person often will fail to exercise the faith that God has given to them is because they need to base their faith upon the right foundation.
If we are basing our faith upon the desire for a circumstance to change then our faith will not be sustained but if we base it wholly and solely upon the word of God then it has a foundation that endures despite the contrary circumstances.
I believe that we all need to lift the bar in these days to the place where we believe that Gods Word has final authority over every circumstance of our lives,and we believe that what God has said in his holy precious written Word will come to pass.
I call this the greatest faith.
In the next blog I will conclude this subject of hope and faith by talking about "the greatest faith"