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Hope - Assurance

Up-Dated - Friday, April 04, 2014

Table of Contents
* What is Hope?
* Lose Salvation? No!  But lose Hope?  Yes!
* Hope is the Results of . . .

What is hope?

Heb 6:10  "For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have showed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister."

Heb 6:11  "And we desire that every one of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end:"

Diligently cling to the "full assurance of hope" to the end.  Just like you did in your ministering to the saints.

Hope is "full assurance" and must be diligently practiced in order to be realized.

When we have hope in the promises of God we have full assurance in the promises of God.

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Loss of salvation? No!  But loss of hope?  Yes!

Heb 3:14  "For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end;"

"Partaking" is not salvation but is the fellowship the saved enjoy when they are walking with the Lord.

Confidence (hope) can come and go with our fellowship.

If we lose our confidence in our salvation, it is not a loss of salvation, but a loss of hope or full assurance of salvation.  Hope or assurance is a state of mind and our state of mind, does not effect what the Lord does.

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Hope is the results of . . .
having gone to God again and again in trying times and proved to self that He is indeed faithful to do what He says He will do.

Rom 5:2  "By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God."

By faith we have access to grace.  Having stood in that grace we have great joy in the assurance (hope) of the majesty of God.

Hope is the assurance that results in standing in faith-gained grace for a while.

See the next few verses for an illustration.

Rom 5:3  "And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;"

Rom 5:4  "And patience, experience; and experience, hope:"

Rom 5:5  "And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us."

Troubles come and we patiently endure (faith.).  Having done this over and over we gain experience and experience teaches us that God is faithful.  We are then never ashamed because we have learned with full assurance (hope) that we can trust in God.  The Holy Spirit is our instructor in all of this.

Faith is the beginning.  This is trusting with a little doubt.

Hope is the next step.  This is trusting in full assurance, having used our faith over a period of time and found God to be faithful.

The next step, then, is Charity.  This is love of God and others with the right attitude.

1 Cor 13:13  "And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity."

Continually acting in faith gives us great assurance (hope.)
* Assurance that we are saved.
* Assurance in the promises of the Lord.
* Assurance in etc.

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G. Steven Andres
Psalms 45:17
Missionary Evangelist
Copyright - 1996 to 2010