The Anchor That Goes Up

In my last article I wrote about expectation. And every time I say that faith is expecting God to move, somebody tells me the same thing:

“That’s easy for you. You’re a positive person. I’m not like that. I’m a realist.”

I understand why people say that. Nobody wants to sound like they’re giving up. So they’ll say they’re being “realistic.” They don’t want to get their hopes up only to have them dashed again.

But what you need to know is that hope doesn’t come from our personalities. Some people think if you don’t get the “hope gene,” you got stuck with the “being realistic” one. It’s not like that, and I’m the proof.

When Karen and I got married, we were broke. We almost divorced. And my mouth was terrible. I spoke negatively all the time.

I’d gotten saved. I really did love God. But the words coming out of my mouth were tearing down my life and my marriage. I was a Christian, but there was no victory in my life.

So when I tell you that you can have hope, I’m not some naturally happy man who can’t imagine your life. I had to learn it the hard way. It was slow going, and I had to get into God’s Word to get that negativity out of me.

I finally came to realize that hope isn’t something you’re born with. It is a gift straight from God.

The apostle Paul wrote this to the church in Rome:

“Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13).

I want you to see two things in that verse.

First, God is called “the God of hope.” That means hope comes from Him. It doesn’t come from your good mood.

Second, Paul says it comes “by the power of the Holy Spirit.” It doesn’t require you to work up a positive attitude. Paul is saying that it’s God’s power that can fill you with real hope, and nothing else.

So if you’ve written yourself off because of your own personality, the Holy Spirit has something to say about that. Your personality doesn’t get the last word about you.

Peter says something even better. He says God “has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3).

When Peter says “begotten,” he’s talking about being born again. He’s using birth language. That means you don’t have to earn it. Peter is telling you that you got filled with hope the minute you gave your life to Jesus.

Peter also calls it “a living hope.” That means you can also have a dead hope. Dead hope is just wishful thinking. “I hope the Cowboys win Sunday.” “I hope we get some rain tomorrow.” That kind of hope usually doesn’t last, because the Cowboys often don’t win on Sunday, and it doesn’t rain much in Texas in the summer. There’s nothing behind that kind of hope. It disappears by Sunday evening or dries up by Monday morning. Peter says our hope is living because it is tied to a Living Person who defeated death, Hell, and the grave.

Before you knew Jesus, you didn’t have real hope. Paul is clear about that in Ephesians 2:12:

“…you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.”

Life without God is just like that. But you don’t have to live that way anymore. So when you see a Christian who has no hope, he is living without something God already gave him.

Imagine having millions of dollars in the bank but you don’t really know it’s there. The truth is, you aren’t poor. All that money is in your name. But you don’t live like any of it belongs to you, because you don’t even know you have it. That is how a lot of Christians live with the hope that the Holy Spirit gave them. They have plenty available to them, but they just don’t live like it.

This is also what Paul told the young pastor Timothy:

“Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you” (2 Timothy 1:6).

Stir up that gift. You don’t have to go looking for it, and you don’t have to earn it. The Holy Spirit already gave it to Timothy. Paul is telling him to pull it out and use it. Now, Paul wasn’t speaking specifically about hope in this verse, but the verse applies. Whatever the Holy Spirit has given to you, use it.

The Greek word Paul used means “to fan a fire back into a flame.” Fanning only works on a fire that is already there. Even if it has burned down to coals and looks dead, you can still bring it back to life with oxygen and more fuel.

Some of you reading may think that your fire has gone out. But it hasn’t. There are still hot coals under those ashes, and that fire was put in you the day you came to Jesus. Those coals just need oxygen and fuel. Oxygen is the breath of the Holy Spirit, and fuel is the power of God’s Word.

I love this picture in the book of Hebrews:

“This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil” (Hebrews 6:19).

Hope is your anchor. But I want you to see what is holding that anchor.

When you drop an anchor in the ocean or a lake, it goes down and catches on the floor beneath the water. But not hope’s anchor. It goes straight up and rests behind the veil in the very Presence of God. Heaven holds hope’s anchor for you.

If you tie your hope to your circumstances, then every wind and every storm will knock you off course. But if you tie your anchor to God’s throne, no storm can move you. He’s holding you steady from above. That is why Paul says:

“Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth” (Colossians 3:2).

1. Read your Bible.

   Paul said the Scriptures were written so that we “might have hope” (Romans 15:4). Hope grows in you as you read God’s Word. That’s why believers who stop reading the Bible almost always struggle.

2. Remember on purpose.

   Jeremiah was sitting in the ruins of Jerusalem when he wrote, “This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope” (Lamentations 3:21). He wasn’t waiting for his circumstances to change. He went right back to the source of his hope. You have a testimony of what God has done in your life already. I don’t have to prove that God can move in your life. I only need to remind you of what He has already done.

3. Watch who you hang out with.

   Hope is contagious. So are negativity and giving up. You’ll contract whichever one you spend the most time around.

Perhaps you’ve been praying the wrong prayer for far too long.

You’ve asked God to give you hope, but remember, He already did that. He gave it to you when you accepted Jesus. The Holy Spirit has kept it alive in you. It’s anchored in the Presence of God, so the devil can’t touch it.

So I encourage you to change how you pray. Instead of asking the Lord to give you hope, say this:

You’re not asking for something impossible. You’re asking God to show you what already belongs to you. It’s yours. Take possession of it.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.