We’ve already learned from that scripture

that hope must be present for faith to

produce. But the reverse is also true. Hope

can’t produce anything without faith! Faith

is the substance.

I remember years ago when I first started

studying the subject of faith, I discovered that

many people were trying to get by on hope

alone, and it wasn’t working. They’d say,

“We’re just hoping and praying,” and I’d know

right then they wouldn’t get anything, because

without faith their hope had no substance.

Hope is only the blueprint. You can’t take

a blueprint all by itself and make a house

out of it. You won’t be able to live in the

thing because it’s paper. But if you’ll take

some substance—lumber and steel and

stone—you can follow the blueprint and

build a place fit to live in. Faith and hope.

Blueprint and building materials. You must

have them both.

Remember though, as I said before, the

only truly workable blueprint comes from

the Word of God. All other blueprints will

let you down.

That’s why you often hear people say,

“Don’t get your hopes up.” They’ve had

experience with natural hope (hope based on

circumstances and human knowledge instead

of on the Word of God), and they know that

kind of hope will leave you disappointed

more often than not.

In Colossians 1:23, Paul warns us not to

be moved away from the “hope of the gospel.”

That’s because any other hope besides “gospel

hope” can be spiritually dangerous.

Say, for example, you were dealing with

a physical disease and your doctor told you

that you only had a small chance of recovering.

He’d say that because, based on the

natural information he’d have, that might be

all he could medically expect—and he

wouldn’t want to offer you a false hope that

might leave you disappointed.

But the Bible says when we operate in

the hope of the gospel, we’ll not be ashamed.

So, instead of clinging to that flimsy thread

of limited hope which man has offered you,

you’d be much safer going to the Word of

God that says, “By [his] stripes ye were

healed!” Because those words aren’t based on

fragmented human information. They’re

based on the knowledge of God Himself.

Instead of holding on to natural hope, if

you built up supernatural hope by meditating

on that truth and looking at it night and day,

you’d soon have some inner images of strength

you could wrap your faith around. You’d even

be able to use that supernatural hope to

combat the natural evidence around you. Then,

instead of having a small hope for recovery,

you could have a sure hope for recovery!

Look at Romans 4:18 and you can see

what happened when, in the midst of a naturally

hopeless situation, Abraham chose to

build his life on that kind of supernatural

hope. He had received a promise from God

that he would become the father of many

nations. The problem was, he was already

old. So when he turned around and looked

at his 90-year-old wife and then looked in

the mirror and saw a 100-year-old man, he

had no natural hope.

Natural knowledge told him there was

no way he could ever have a child. Don’t

you know that negative knowledge

bombarded his thinking? So what did he do?

He took the promise of God, and the hope

of that promise, and combated the negative

hope coming against him which said, “No

way, you can’t do it. It’s hopeless.”

The Bible says, “He hoped against hope.”

In other words, he used supernatural hope

to overcome natural hope. He locked his

mind onto what God said and drove out

everything else.

Verse 19 says, “Being not weak in faith,

he considered not his own body now dead...

neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb.”

Now, how did he do that? How can you

consider not your own body when you’re 100

years old and thinking about having a baby?

It would be tough, but Abraham was able to

do it because “he staggered not...through unbelief;

but was strong in faith, giving glory to God;

and being fully persuaded that, what [God] had

promised, he was able also to perform” (verses

20-21). God’s promise was at the center of his

hope, his faith and his persuasion.

Abraham was fully persuaded. You can

be fully persuaded, too. But you can’t get

that way by sitting around watching television

or by spending all your time messing

around with the world. You get fully

persuaded by purposely meditating on the

promise of God until it gets inside you so

deeply that no one can get it out.

Another thing that caused Abraham to be

fully persuaded was the fact that God changed

Abraham’s name. God stopped calling him

Abram and started calling him Abraham, which

means “father of a multitude.”

If you’ll pay attention to this principle,

you’ll find you can use it in your own life.

For example, I learned a long time ago to

stop calling myself “poor boy.” It didn’t

matter that on the outside I looked broke. I

decided—based on the Word of God—if

anyone hollered, “Poor boy!” I wouldn’t

answer, ever again.

Now, if they were to start hollering for

someone who has all his needs met according

to God’s riches in Christ Jesus, I’d come

running. But I decided I wouldn’t go by what

things looked like anymore. I wouldn’t go by

what I felt. I had based my life on something

bigger than feelings. I had gotten the hope of

the gospel inside me.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

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.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries