Hope: The Blueprint of Faith by Kenneth Copeland
If I asked you to explain to me what
hope is, what would you say? What example
would you give me from your own life?
Would you think back to a time when
you hoped for something, just to have those
hopes dissolve into disappointment?
Most people would. That’s because, in
their minds, hope and disappointment keep
very close company. Such close company, in
fact, that even the word “hope,” has a ring of
uncertainty. “Maybe it will happen—maybe it
won’t,” they say. “All we can do is hope.”
But there’s something very wrong about
that perspective. It flatly contradicts the Word
of God. He says “hope maketh not ashamed,”
or as another translation puts it, “hope does
not disappoint us” (Romans 5:5).
“Brother Copeland, how in the world
can you say hope won’t leave us ashamed?”
you may ask. “There have been many times
when I’ve hoped and prayed with all my
heart and nothing happened. So how can
you stand there and tell me hope won’t
disappoint me?”
I’m not the one who’s telling you! I didn’t
write Romans 5. It was written by the
Apostle Paul under the inspiration of the
Holy Ghost. So it was God, not I, Who said
hope won’t disappoint you. And if He said
it, it has to be true.
That’s why there’s no use in you or
anybody else whining to me about how it
failed you and left you ashamed. I know it
didn’t. HOPE didn’t. If you ended up disappointed,
you must have been using something
other than hope because God says real, Bible
hope won’t leave you that way.
“Well, I guess I must not know what real
hope is, then!” you say.
That’s true. There’s a good chance you
don’t. So maybe we’d better go to the Word
of God and find out.
Hebrews 11:1 says, “Faith is the substance
of things hoped for....”
The first thing we can learn about hope
from that scripture is that faith won’t do us
any good without it. Hope serves as the
blueprint for faith. Without it, faith has
nothing to do. Hope is the plan that faith
carries out. It’s the inner image—the picture
that the Holy Spirit paints on the inside of
you, a picture that’s based on the Word of
God. Its opposite is despair, which is an
image of disaster based on the lies of the
devil. Despair says there is no hope.
Did you catch what I said a moment ago
about hope being based on the Word of God?
That’s most important. You may wish that you
were two inches taller or that you had a
million dollars in the bank. You may even be
optimistic enough to think those wishes might
come true. But you will not have the hopethat-
does-not-disappoint until you go to the
Word and find out what God has promised
you about those things, and then base your
hope on His Word instead of your wishes.
You see, the Bible contains the only workable
blueprint for your life (or any other
human life for that matter). It’s the manufacturer’s
operating manual. If you ignore the
instructions in it, your life simply won’t
work. It’s like putting water in the gas tank
of your car. You can do it, but it won’t get
you anywhere. Your car’s operator’s handbook
will tell you to put water in the radiator
and gas in the fuel tank and then it will
work. The Word is the manual of life.
