Real Hope continued

What does expectation produce?

1. Excitement -action- provocation- passion

The first thing I notice when I started to hope correctly for specific things, was I became joyfully excited. So I decided to look up the word excite. Excitement is an arousal of emotions and feelings. So excitement can produce joy as well as anxiety.  This means hope can be for something negative or positive. You can expect to do well on a test or you can expect to fail. Either way your mind and body respond. I have found that I have to make a concerted effort to speak only what I want to happen and not what I think might happen based on the past. If I  allow my mind to focus on the negatives of the past I am allowing fear to keep me captive. Fear is what Satan uses to bind me, keeping me from reaching my full potential. But if I let go of the past and speak what I want to happen (speak those things that are not as though they are ) and add faith to my hope I will have what I say.  It starts with my thoughts. Hope starts as a thought, dream or vision of something desired. The excitement comes when I continue to think about or meditate on the manifestation of what I envision.

2. Faith -assurance -dependence- presumption  

Hebrews 11.1 Now faith is the assurance (the confirmation, [a]the title deed) of the things [we] hope for, being the proof of things [we] do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses].

I have recently learned that not trusting God is the same as saying he is a liar. The Israelites could not possess the promise because they believed what they saw with their eyes instead of what God said He would do. They were calling God a liar so they received what they spoke (speak those things that are not as though they were) They died in the desert. Faith is the door to receiving blessings from God. (for without faith it is impossible to please God, for we must believe that HE is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.) Faith acts as though what is hoped for has already been received. It causes one to become diligent in going after what is hoped for. Without faith excitement dwindles away and what was hoped for becomes a point of pain. (Hope deferred makes the heart sick...) Faith is not an emotion like excitement. It is a firm belief in something and is only visible through behavior. Faith without work is dead. How I respond to situations speaks more volume about my faith then what I say. My attitude toward life show what I've been meditating on, it is the mirror of my beliefs. Words are powerful but if one doesn't believe what they are saying the words lose their weight and have no effect.