For what a person sees, he does not need to hope for. But if we hope for what we cannot see, then we wait expectantly for it. Hebrews 10 23 says, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, because you can rely on the one who promised.

There are three main forces in the human spirit, and I've thought on this in many places, especially in my series, The Way of Blessing, where we dealt in detail with the forces of faith, and love, and hope. And a lot has been preached on these three, and I tried to deal with each one in sufficient detail. But as I look back on it, I realized that there's one that always seems to get neglected.

And that's the hope. Somehow, we don't seem to think that hope is quite that important. It's always kind of listed near the end.

We put faith first, and then we put love, and then we put hope. Now, in the world today, and in the body of Christ, there are many who are preaching faith. And there's a group which is based on faith, and they call themselves the Word of Faith.

They're an entire movement based just on teaching faith. Everybody knows how important faith is, but there's not terribly much preached on love, is there? Why is that? Somehow, I suspect it because preachers are afraid to preach on love, because they realize that they're lacking it in their own life. It's very easy to preach on faith when you've developed your faith, and you're strong in faith, but when you preach on love, you kind of have to practice what you preach.

And so, as I look for teaching on love, we hardly find anything, let alone there being a Word of Love movement or something like that. It just doesn't exist, does it? Okay, and then when we come to hope, well, there's virtually nothing. Every now and then, somebody does preach on love.

Somebody dares to step out and preach on the importance of love, but nobody ever, ever preaches on faith, on hope. Nothing. Where are we going to find teaching on hope? Well, I found one preacher, a very famous preacher, actually, who is the only one that I consider that gave clear teaching on the subject of hope, although he wasn't actually intending to do that, and he didn't even present it as a teaching on hope.

In fact, today, his teaching has kind of fallen by the wayside, it's considered old hat. I'm speaking about Yonggi Cho, who is famous for having built the largest church in the world. Yonggi Cho wrote a book some years ago called The Fourth Dimension.

Most of you today probably never heard of The Fourth Dimension, because it's not in vogue anymore, but it's still available, and it's still around. And in The Fourth Dimension, Yonggi Cho emphasized the importance of visualizing and seeing what you believe in God for. If you were in his church and you needed something, he'd tell you to begin to visualize what you're wanting.

If you were single and came to him and said, oh, I'm praying for a husband or a wife, he would get you to write down a list of exactly what kind of person you're wanting God to provide. And probably the most famous and powerful principle, he applied himself when he decided to build the largest church in the world. Started out with a handful of people, very, very few.

He was a little nobody, an obscure little person nobody heard about. He had a passion, and a passion, and a desire to build a big church. So he started with these small little group.

I remember reading what he taught. Now I remember hearing him live many years ago, and he said he stood up in front of his two or three people, and he said, hey, all your people out there, it's great to have you here today. He said in his mind, he could see this huge church full of people, and he started to act like there were lots of people there.

Well, it didn't stay that way. Even today, many years later, after he's officially even retired from ministry, he still draws thousands of people in his church. How did he do it? He did it using the force of hope.

Now I'd like to explain a little bit more how hope works. I gave a simple illustration in the way of blessing that faith, hope, and love are like firing a gun, where faith is the bullet or the charge, that the trigger that you release it with is love, and hope is the sights on the gun that you use to aim towards your target. And that was a very simple illustration to try and help you understand how hope should be used, but it doesn't fully explain what hope is and how you get it.

See, that's the bottom line. Okay, so now I understand what faith is, how do I get it? Now I understand what love is, how do I get it? And if I can understand what hope is, how do I get it? And once I've got it, what do I do with it? See, this is what is not being taught, and that's what I'm hoping with the Lord's help to try and correct here today. Now because hope works with faith and love, we cannot avoid teaching on it without considering the other two.

They are like the three primary colors of light, which when blended together become pure white light. They can't be separated like the Trinity, like Father, Son and Holy Spirit must be manifest as one together, but yet there is a distinction. And so I want to show you how hope blends with faith and love, but how it is also distinct, and how it can be identified and developed separately.

Each of the three things in this triad has a tense. Here's a starting point to understanding where hope fits in. One of them is the past tense, one of them is the present tense, and one of them is a future tense.

I'm sure your mind is ticking now and saying which one is which. Well, if you've heard my teaching before, you can probably already answer it, but I'm going to give it to you again. Faith is always related to the past tense.

You see, how did faith come? Faith came when you saw God giving you the answer to your prayer. As you came to ask the Lord for something, God gave you a revelation and he said, I'm giving it to you. That is when faith was born in your hearts.

Now that you have seen the Lord give you what you've desired, it's now a past tense. It's an accomplished fact. Even though you don't hold it yet in your hands, the Lord said, yes, you can have what you asked for.

And so now faith is born in my heart. God said, yes, and I believe I have received the answer to my prayer. Now I can begin to thank the Lord that he answered my prayer and that he has given me the thing that I desired.

Thank you, Lord, for providing. Love is always a present tense because love is something you do. Love is something you do.

Love isn't an emotional feeling. Yes, love affects our emotions, but love in itself is something that has to be released through action. So what happens when we get that faith, that revelation of faith? We then release that faith through loving action.

Book of James says, faith without action is dead. So love is something we're doing in the present tense. Faith is something that is already accomplished because God said yes back there when we prayed, and now I am releasing that faith through loving action.

That leaves us with hope, which is a future tense because hope is now connected with the actual manifestation of the thing that I asked for. So hope involves me preparing to see this thing appear. I asked the Lord for it.

He gave it to me. I began to act loving action to release my faith, and now I anticipate the appearance, the manifestation of the thing that I asked for. I wait for it eagerly.

Any day now is it going to come. First thing in the morning when I get up will today be the day. Eager expectation.

That's hope. Okay. Now, each of these also affects different part of our being, totally different part of our being.

A man, like God, is made up of how many parts? Three. What are the three parts to our being? Our spirit, our soul, our body, but each one of those parts also has three, and so our soul has three things in it. Mind, emotions, and will.

And these three spiritual forces, when they come up out of our spirit, they begin to affect our soul in each of those three parts. What is it that affects our mind? It's faith. You see, faith came when you saw God giving it to you in your mind.

Now in your mind, you know. It's yours. You can close your eyes and visualize it in your mind.

Your mind has a knowledge, a revelation that says, I have what God promised me. I've received it. So faith affects the mind.

What does love affect? Well, I said love is something you do. So it affects the will, doesn't it? Our will is involved in love. Loving action requires our will to make a choice and to take an action.

So what does hope affect? It affects our emotions. Now we know that actually our will is probably the weakest part of us. We say, man, she's got such a strong will.

Man, he's got great willpower. No, there's actually no power in the will at all. The will actually is a servant.

The thing that controls us is our feelings. And if you don't feel like doing something, your will is powerless to do anything. So actually our emotions are the most important part of our being.

But we kind of ignore that. We spend tons of time studying, building up knowledge in our mind, don't we? In the same way that so much emphasis has been put on teaching faith or building in the mind. But emotions are neglected.

Emotions are one of those things, well, if you got it, you got it. If you don't, you know, if your emotions let you down, well, it's just tough. I'm just not feeling up yet today.

Can you see that in the same way that our emotions, although they've been neglected, are the most important part that decide what we do in life and what we accomplish in life? In the same way, the force of hope, which appears to have been the most insignificant of the three, is actually the most powerful in enabling us to get what we're believing for. So I asked the Lord years ago, and he said, yes, and I've been believing God now for 20 years. I've heard people in the word of faith teach us, I believed God for 20 years before it finally happened.

Why did it take so long? Well, you know, God had a purpose, God had a plan. I don't believe so. I believe people have concentrated so on faith that they neglected the one force that would cause that thing to come to them.

The hope is a lot more important and powerful than we realize in the same way that our emotions, a lot more important than we realize. So if that be the case, shouldn't we be doing everything in our power to get that force to be alive and well and operating in us? If that is the force that's going to finally bring the manifestation of what we've been believing for, then shouldn't we be putting more time and effort into it? And if our feelings are the most important thing in causing us to succeed in life and to accomplish the things we desire, shouldn't we be making every effort to somehow build the right feelings in us, knowing that that feeling will drive us? I know people out there have taught on it, and I've taught on it. It's not enough to have desire, you need a core desire.

What's a core desire? A core desire is when your emotion is so stirred with desire and feelings that it's white hot. You say, I've got to have it, I've got to have it, I can't live without it. Your emotions will drive you to reach the goal.

Well, hope's going to do the same thing. So what I asked the Lord years ago, but I'm waiting and I'm hoping, just waiting and I'm hoping, one of these days maybe, it will come. Maybe God will answer.

See, your hope is weak. Your hope is what I hope so. That's the way we often use it in English.

Hope is a positive expectation. Hope is when you go to the mailbox every day expecting that letter to be there. And we've stopped having that expectation.

We said in his time, God will give it. He said, he'd give it to me, I'll wait and I'll hope. Shouldn't we be making an effort to building our hope to such a place where our hope is releasing a spiritual force that will bring to manifestation the thing that we're believing for? If that be the case, perhaps we should find a way of developing our hope and making it stronger.

You agree with me so far? Good. How do we do this? How do we amplify our hope? How do we increase it and make it strong? Actually, far easier than you realize because it works the same as emotion, because hope and emotion are blended together. How can you change your feelings so that you'll start to feel the thing you want to feel? How do you change your desires so that they become a core desire? You start by meditating on the things that you desire.

You start by filling your mind with pictures, right? Until you can see it and taste it and smell it, touch it. And then you start putting your will into action and acting as though it's here already. What happens is those emotions grow good and strong.

You don't have to stir them up. They stir you up. They drive you.

Actually, you can do exactly the same thing with hope. See, do the exact same thing with hope. And that is why we need the faith and the love because you see, faith links with the mind, love links with the will.

So how do we start to produce hope? We start by working on our faith. See, your mind produces pictures and that's what changes your emotions. Well, those pictures in your mind also produce faith.

And that faith is what is going to change your hope. See, in the same way that we cannot choose to change our feelings. Well, I'm feeling miserable today.

I'm going to make myself feel happy. I choose to be happy. Doesn't work, does it? See, but as I fill my mind with the pictures, as I put my will into action, as I begin to speak about the things I desire and I fill my mind with that, I start to get a change of emotion and change of feeling.

Now, I hope we do the same thing. We make a choice through our will to fix our eyes on the Lord and to receive from Him the pictures, the revelation. God puts the picture in your mind.

God gives the revelation. You see Jesus giving it to you. You see that you have it and faith is born.

Now, those positive pictures of faith are what produce hope. And if you will continually wait on God in faith and ask Him to produce that faith, hope will come automatically. And then faith is dead without action, isn't it? So, as faith comes, you've got to release that faith with loving action.

And as you do that, your hope gets even stronger. To produce hope, you start making a choice to come back into His presence and say, show it to me, Lord. Show it to me, Lord.

As that faith is born and as you begin to act on your faiths, hope becomes highly magnified and amplified. Now, what do we do with it? Oh, now my hope is there. Oh, that's great.

I'm excited. I can feel it. I believe it.

I'm expecting it to happen any moment now. I'm expecting it to happen. I'm waiting for it to happen.

You know what we do? By how our spiritual force is released. See, having faith in my heart accomplishes nothing until it is released. Having love accomplishes nothing until it's released.

And having hope accomplishes nothing until it's released. So, how do we release spiritual power? Oh, you should be able to answer this question if I woke you up in the middle of the night. Words and actions.

Words and actions. One of the verses we read at the beginning was like this. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope.

Without wavering. So, what's the first way you release the power of hope? Through words. Through words.

How do you do that? You announce your revelation to the world. You talk about it. You say, this is what God has promised me.

This is what I'm getting. One of these days, this hall is going to be too small to hold all the people that are coming here. One of these days, the finance is going to be coming in faster than what I can spend it.

And our bank accounts is going to get bigger and bigger and bigger. One of these days, I'm going to be able to compete with people 20 years younger than me because I'm going to be so physically fit. One of these days, I'm going to have to get a new wardrobe of clothes because I'm going to lose so much weight and my old clothes will be too big and I'll have to get rid of them.

See, that's releasing your hope through words. The more you speak about it, you know what happens? Your faith begins to grow. And as your faith begins to grow, your hope begins to grow automatically.

And then love motivates you to start speaking words like this. Hallelujah. Thank you, Lord, for providing.

Thank you, Lord. I am so grateful that you have given this to me. Thank you, Lord.

Thank you, Lord. You keep praising the Lord for the answer. See, that's releasing your hope through words.

Oh, but you know, I've been waiting years and it's still not here yet. Have you been praising for it? No, we're waiting for the arrival before we get excited and start praising. Start releasing it now through words of praise and gratitude and thanking God for it.

So, let's maintain the confession of your hope. And then you need to add action to it as well. You need to structure your life in anticipation.

Once this hall is too small to hold the people, by the time that happens, we're going to need a lot of parking space out there for all the cars that are going to bring all the people. Have we allowed for that? Where are we going to park them? Do we have space out there to park all of them? Do we have demarcated parking areas? And when all these cars come flooding through our gate, nobody's going to know where to park. We should have somebody there to actually say, you park here, you park there.

We need to structure our lives in anticipation. See, when you get your new car that God has given you, where are you going to park it? And will you need to put a covering over it? Is there a carport? You've got to start structuring your life in anticipation because you are expecting this thing to happen any moment. When your future partner, your life partner arrives, what are you going to do? What's going to change in your life? Are you ready for it right now? Are there some changes that you should start making now in anticipation? See, that's putting your hope into action.

In other words, you've got to take your dreams, start converting them into goals and plans and action. This is what's going to speed up the process. This is what's going to release the force of hope and that force of hope is going to bring into manifestation what you have been believing for.

Your hope will produce the results. Your faith will not produce the results unless it is converted into hope. Your knowledge will not do anything until it's converted into desire and feelings and action.

You see, how important hope is. It's far more important than we realize. Are you tired of waiting for the manifestation of what you are believing for? Are you tired of waiting for what God promised you a long time ago? And it's time to amplify your hope.

It's time to increase it and it's time to unleash it in this world and release it and cause it to bring the manifestation what you've been believing for. You need all three spiritual forces to get anything in life. Although it's considered the last of the three, hope is actually one of the most important.

It's like our emotions. It really decides whether we're going to keep going or not. And you can learn to develop hope in the same way that you've learned to change your feelings.

Then when the force of hope is in place, you begin to release it through words and actions. I believe you can expect positive results every time. You can expect positive results much sooner than you realized and you don't have to keep praying and waiting.

One of these days, maybe, today will be the day. No, put your expectation, get your hope, right out and say, I want it and I want it now. Come on, I'm expecting it.

Where is it? I've already taken my step towards it, expecting it to appear. I'm stepping out into the unknown. With an expectation that I will not be denied.

Develop your hope and unleash it. Reach out and grab this thing that God has promised you, which he wants you to have. Before you know it, there it will appear right before you.

You'll see the thing you've been hoping for. Praise Jesus. Thank you, Lord, for your word.

I pray that it's challenged those who've heard it now. That you'll stir us up to reach out and take what is ours. To release all of these spiritual forces together.

To build our hope up to the point we are quite surprised if it doesn't manifest. Because we have such a strong expectation. May you stir each one up, Lord.

May you grant them the desires of their heart now. May you bring the manifestation of what we've been waiting for, for so long. Thank you for it now in Jesus name.

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