1Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. [simple_tooltip content=’1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
2 For by it the elders obtained a good testimony.
3 By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.
4 By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks.
5 By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, “and was not found, because God had taken him”; for before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God.
6 But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.’](Hebrews 11:1-6)[/simple_tooltip]
There is a direct relationship between faith and hope. You can’t have one without the other. Faith gives substance to things we hope for. Remove hope, and faith has no goal to achieve. A story that illustrates this is about a hillbilly who wandered into a church service. As the people started praising the Lord, the temperature in the sanctuary began to rise. He saw an usher walk over to the wall and turn a dial on a little white box. Within seconds cool air blew out of a vent onto this hillbilly’s face. Utterly amazed, he thought this must be one of the greatest things he’d ever experienced!
Immediately he asked the usher what the device was and how he could get one. The usher told him it was a thermostat and all hardware stores sold them. The man could hardly wait to get out of the church service and buy one. After purchasing a thermostat, he took it home and mounted it on the wall of his house; but no matter how much he turned the dial, cool air never came out.
This man didn’t realize that the thermostat didn’t produce the cool air. It only turned the power unit on and off. That’s a beautiful picture of the way faith and hope work together. Hope is your thermostat. It activates your faith. Although your faith is the power that overcomes the world, hope is the victory your faith moves to achieve. Remove hope, and faith will never be activated. Faith must have a goal.
Let God build a strong hope in you today, and then release all your faith behind it.
