We all need to have hope. To live a life without hope is most miserable. If you’re a believer, you know God is a God of miracles. For scripture tells us that He can do above and beyond what we ask or ever can imagine. But what if He chooses not to? Will your faith endure? There is a guy who always posts things like, “Today is your day! God has heard your prayer. He’s going to rescue you, today!” While this is very encouraging, and it may very well be the case, but what if it does not happen? What is if for a reason only He knows, he wants you to go through a difficult and trying situation? Let’s see what the Bible says about that. In Psalms 105:19, about the story of Joseph, “Until the time that his word came to pass, The word of the LORD tested him.” And in 1 Peter 1:6-7 ” 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”
In Hebrews 11, which has been called, “the hall of faith”, it describes all the saints of old who were able to achieve great things because that had faith. I’ve heard so many sermons on the first part of Hebrews 11, but not so many on the saints in the second part of the chapter. “36 And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment:
37 They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented;
38 (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.
39 And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise:
40 God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.”
In other words, that same faith by which great exploits were wrought, is the same faith that empowers us to endure. God is pleased with both kinds of faith. In this life we will have tribulation. We live in a fallen, cursed world that is marred by sin, and this would will pass away. God said he will destroy it with “a great heat”, and he will create a new world. A restored world where will will dwell with him in eternity. Our problem is that we tend to think that by being Christians we will live a heaven on earth. That’s simply not the case. And many loose their faith when hard trials happen. Many become disappointed and fall away. Our hope needs to be anchored in the person of Christ, not in our situation changing. It very well may, but sometimes it may not.
Right now in America we are seeing things change not for the better. It’s getting harder to be a true follower of Christ. The Bible tells us that things on earth will get worse before the Lord returns. It will become that much harder to hold on to our faith. In fact He said, “when the Lord returns, will he find faith on the earth?” Luke 18:8.
In conclusion, whether we get our miracle or not, God is still God. We have a better place that awaits those who follow him. So we can and should have hope. That faith and hope will not disappoint us. Better things lay ahead for those who continue to believe. That’s the ultimate miracle.