We all need hope and purpose for our lives. I know in my life that I had come to the end of all the plans and purposes that I could have imagined. I kept trying to discover why I was put here, and what God's reasoning was for creating me. After I had achieved one of my financial dreams at 30 years old, I felt emptier than ever, and cried out to a God that I had not yet met. I told Him that obviously He had created humans, just look at the genius of our bodies, our circulatory system, our brain, etc. I felt that if He created something so great, then how could humans just waste their lives on things that did not matter. He heard my cry, but waited eight more years to reveal Himself to me.
I heard a man tell me one time, “I can live without love, without faith, but I cannot live without hope.” I think he had something to say.
What is hope? How does it relate to purpose in life? The Biblical meaning of hope is not anything like the common hope we often use, as in, “Oh, I hope this thing works out for me.”
Biblical hope means the expectation of good, to anticipate with pleasure.
Hope is like the architectural drawings for a building yet to be built. It is the design, the vision of what cannot yet be seen. After the architect makes the drawings, or creates the vision, then the builder must add energy to create what the drawings say.
Another analogy is that hope is like the thermostat on your furnace; is the goal-setting device. You look at the thermometer and it shows that the house is only 50 degrees. You desire the temperature to be 70 degrees. Do you just look at it and complain? No. You turn the thermostat to 70 degrees and create the hope, or the vision. Now the furnace must be powerful enough to create the vision. If it is not, it does not matter how high you turn the thermostat.
We can create our own hope that is not God’s plan for our lives.
I used to create my own visions, as most of you probably have. The problem was that none of them were God’s plan for my life. Some of them came about; those that my own power could perform. Many did not. Even those that came to pass were total disappointments because I did not know about God’s vision, God’s hope for me.
Galatians 6:7 says,
7 “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.”
I had reaped some bad “stuff” because I had sown bad things. I was not living my vision or dream. I had become miserable, and felt powerless to change things.
When we create our own hope, we are sowing bad seeds for our lives; we are actually sowing sin. Not only do we sow bad seeds, but most likely our ancestors have sown bad seeds that we now reap due to the law of the generational curse.
Creating our own hope brings Satan on our case.
These are indeed bad seeds, but they potentially have more destructive power than one might think at first glance. Satan and his associates get a foothold, a legal right to perpetuate curses and destruction in our lives and in the lives of our children.
Jacob was in much the same condition in Genesis chapters 30-31.
If you have sown bad seeds in your life like Jacob did, and now you are reaping bad things into your life, hang on; the Blood Covenant will correct things.
We must reach the end of ourselves like Jacob did. Jacob had reaped what he had sown. He was on a detour from God’s plan, but not in God's mind. When we are marked by God, He comes to us in our prisons made by bad choices and gives us a vision, a Word, to rescue us. Jacob was marked as a covenant man. God has a perfect plan for each covenant son or daughter of His. It is a predestined path, it is called “abundant life.” It is customized for each one of us. God intervened in Jacob’s life with a vision, which set him free from the bondage which was a result of his own sowing and reaping. The vision contained within itself the very power to perform that which God wanted for Jacob's life.
Ephesians 2:10 (Amplified Bible) says,
10 “For we are God’s [own] handiwork (His workmanship), recreated in Christ Jesus, [born anew] that we may do those good works which God predestined (planned beforehand) for us [taking paths which He prepared ahead of time], that we should walk in them [living the good life which He prearranged and made ready for us to live].”
How does this work?
You might say that even if God gave you the hope, the vision for the future, that you don't have the power to pull it off. Good!
Here is how it works.
Hebrews 11:1-2 (Amplified Bible) says,
1 “NOW FAITH is the assurance (the confirmation, 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].
2 For by [faith – trust and holy fervor born of faith] the men of old had divine testimony borne to them and obtained a good report.”
1. Hope. Through your relationship with God in His Word, coupled with the relationship skills we have been and will be defining, God will plant a Word/seed into your heart. This is how He works.
Romans 15:13 says,
13 “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
You may or may not know exactly what the seed represents. It may be a promise as precise as, “I will take care of your financial needs.” It may be very vague, as is usually the case when your future is concerned.
2. Faith. The seed that is planted in your heart has the ability to produce what it represents. The acorn has the power to produce an oak tree. The seed of corn has the ability to produce a new stalk of corn. I have been told, that if you were to cut open the acorn, you could see the picture of the oak tree it represents.
Having this Word come to you from God produces the faith that produces the title deed, (the ownership) to the hope, or the vision that God has for you.
3. Perseverance and obedience. The next step is to resist the doubt caused by the delay in time, and to resist Satan from stealing your seed.
Hebrews 6:11-12 says,
11 “And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end,
12 that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”
There is good news!
You may have been struggling with purpose for your life. Now God is saying to you that He not only has that purpose, hope or vision for you, but that His power is there to bring it to pass. Now that is good news!
Psalm 37 shows how hope, and desires come, and promises the power to bring them to pass.
First, He gives you the desires.
Psalm 37:4 says,
4 “Delight yourself also in the LORD, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.”
I submit that the word delight here infers having an intimate relationship with the Lord. When you do that, the promise is that He will insert in you the desires He wants you to desire. I do not think it means that He will give you whatever you desire apart from what He puts in your heart, but rather, He will insert in you the power to desire what He wants for you. His desires will become your desires.
Then, He supplies the power.
Psalm 37:5 says,
5 “Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.”
Commit your way infers to live a life of loving obedience to the Lord. Then when you trust in that relationship and in His character, He will supply the power to bring your desires to pass. You do not have to have the power to live out your vision, your desire, and your dream! That is good news to those of us who know that we cannot make life work without Him. It gives real hope to the hopeless!
How did this work for Jacob’s life?
Jacob had sown a lot of bad seeds in his life. He and his mom had deceived his father Isaac to receive the blessing of the first born from his brother Esau. Jacob had been a deceiver, and even though God's plan was for him to receive the blessing of the first-born, he had used ungodly principles to acquire it.
By time we catch up with him in Genesis chapters 30-31 he was reaping a lot of bad fruit. He had hooked up with his uncle Laban, who turned out to be more of a manipulator than Jacob had been. He fell in love with Rachel and made a deal with her father Laban to work for him for seven years in exchange for her hand in marriage. Laban tricked Jacob and substituted his more homely daughter Leah. Jacob made another deal to work an additional seven years for Rachel.
At the end of fourteen years God’s plans for Jacob had come into their fullness of time, and He moved with His sovereignty to put them into place. This in spite of the bad seed he had sown and in spite of Satan’s plans to steal the birthright from Jacob.
God gave Jacob a dream to get him to his purpose and destiny.
The language of the Holy Spirit is to create pictures in our hearts through dreams, through illuminating His written Word, and other means, in order to write upon the “tablets of our hearts.” Then this heart picture becomes our “hope” and the “desires of our hearts.” We find ourselves wanting what God wants for our lives. It is safer to not always try to understand what God has for our future, because we can be self-deceived, interpreting God’s hope for an ungodly carnal desire. It is safer to know that God has planted hope in our hearts, and then trust Him to bring it to pass with His power, leaving “our power” out of the picture. We don’t need to “help” Him like Abraham did when Ishmael was conceived.
The following is Jacob’s dream. The merciful God intervened in Jacob’s life.
Genesis 31:11-13 says,
11 “Then the Angel of God spoke to me in a dream, saying, ‘Jacob.’ And I said, ‘Here I am.’
12 And He said, ‘Lift your eyes now and see, all the rams which leap on the flocks are streaked, speckled, and gray-spotted; for I have seen all that Laban is doing to you.
13 I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed the pillar and where you made a vow to Me. Now arise, get out of this land, and return to the land of your family.’”
Jacob made a deal with Laban as told in Genesis 30:25-43. He offered to work for Laban without specific wages, but that his compensation would only be the offspring of the cattle that had stripes and spots. To make it more interesting, Jacob agreed to move all the existing striped and spotted cattle three days journey from his ranch, and that he would only keep the solid color cattle. Laban could not understand how Jacob could breed cattle with stripes and spots if he only started with solid colors, so he quickly accepted the deal.
Jacob then proceeded to take poplar rods and carve spots and stripes on them. He put these rods in and around the watering troughs where only the strong cattle would water and feed. He did not put these rods where the weaker cattle would feed. Every time the cattle would drink and eat, they would also get the vision from the rods.
Genesis 31:4-10 says,
4 “So Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah to the field, to his flock,
5 and said to them, ‘I see your father’s countenance, that it is not favorable toward me as before; but the God of my father has been with me.
6 And you know that with all my might I have served your father.
7 Yet your father has deceived me and changed my wages ten times, but God did not allow him to hurt me.
8 If he said thus: ‘The speckled shall be your wages,’ then all the flocks bore speckled. And if he said thus: ‘The streaked shall be your wages,’ then all the flocks bore streaked.
9 So God has taken away the livestock of your father and given them to me.
10 And it happened, at the time when the flocks conceived, that I lifted my eyes and saw in a dream, and behold, the rams which leaped upon the flocks were streaked, speckled, and gray-spotted.’”
Jacob became wealthy. His cattle began bringing forth offspring with stripes and spots in such great number that the Scripture says, “Thus the man became exceedingly prosperous, and had large flocks, female and male servants, and camels and donkeys” (Genesis 30:43). This allowed Jacob to take his wives and leave Laban to return to his own land, to his destiny. I suggest that you read this entire story in Genesis chapters 30-31.
After this, Jacob proceeded to his encounter with his estranged brother Esau, and his wrestling encounter with God, where his name was changed to Israel.
It is comforting to know that if we stay in constant and intimate relationship with the Lord, keep our hearts right and allow Him to plant His plans on our hearts, that He will rescue us from our detours in life and take us into our God-ordained purpose!
God wants us to be co-creators with Him.
He wanted the first Adam to be a co-creator, however Adam would not continue in the Word of God, but rather decided to produce his own hope and vision through his powerful mind.
The Power to Create.
Ephesians 5:1 (Amplified Bible) says,
“Therefore be imitators of God [copy Him and follow His example] as well-beloved children [imitate their father].”
Creating new things, changing old things. Because you and I are made in the image of God that’s something we’re always trying to do. But if we’re to be successful at it, we need to learn a lesson about it from the Creator Himself, our very own heavenly Father.
In the original creation, God saw that what He originally created had become corrupt, and when He saw it He spoke out what His plan was. He did not speak what He saw, He spoke what He wanted it to be.
Genesis 1:1-3 says,
1 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
3 Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.”
You know, He didn’t just come upon creation by accident and say, “Well, what do you know! There’s light!” No, before He began to recreate His universe, He first had a desired result (an inner idea, or image, of what He wanted to create) and then said, “Light be!” and light was.
His method of operation is stated in Romans 4:17, which says, “(as it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations”) in the presence of Him whom he believed – God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did.”
As you continue in your authentic relationship with Jesus, you will discover a leading by Him, a guiding hand taking you into your purpose. You will discover desires and visions in your heart that were God given. You may not interpret them properly at first. However, God will smooth out the rough places and transform your mistakes and failures into your ordained path. This path will take you into your purpose. Be diligent and trust Him.
Understand however, that Satan will attempt to discourage you. He has some power to perpetuate the curse, to cause the bad seed of sin in your past and in the past of your ancestors, to manifest itself. While this is still being manifested in your life, you need to know what is going on. You need to know that God is turning your life around like He did Jacob’s. You need to hang on to the promise, to the hope, so that in the end it will be real in your life's experience. Jesus became a curse for you so that you would inherit the blessings.
All of this is only possible because Jesus bore your curse on the Cross. Without that blood covenant exchange, you would be trapped in your own power to only bring your own man made plans to pass.
Your job during this period of hanging onto hope includes, your continually confessing the Word, the promise that God gave to you. It also includes speaking out in faith those Scriptures that apply generically.
Jacob believed the dream that God gave to him.
He believed it so much, that he cut spots and stripes into poplar rods and put them before the cattle so that they would prosper in their breeding.
Over 20 years ago when I still had my grocery story and deli, and business was looking very bleak, I painted spots and stripes on some posts in the parking lot. I looked at them every day as I drove up to the store. Eventually God took me out of that business and put me in the business of His choice. Then, after many trials perpetrated by Satan and his associates, the new business prospered and still is to this date.
Hebrews 6:11-19 says,
11 “And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end,
12 that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
13 For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself,
14 saying, ‘Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you.’
15 And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise.
16 For men indeed swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all dispute.
17 Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath,
18 that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us.
19 This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil.”
You do that same, and you will inherit the promise.
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