Daily Devotionals

Real Bible hope is not “wishing.” It is earnest, intense expectation that what God has said will come to pass.

How do you develop that kind of hope? You stay in the Word until your neck stretches out!

“Till my what stretches where?”

You read right…till your neck stretches out! I particularly like this definition of hope because I know what it means to have my neck stretched.

When I was a little boy, my grandfather was my hero. He was a full-blooded Cherokee Indian and I wanted to act like him, look like him, curse like him and spit like him—much to my mother’s chagrin. When my mother would tell me that he and my grandmother were coming to see us, I would get so excited I could hardly wait.

Every minute or two, I’d run to the window to see if they had arrived. Every noise sent me running for the door. I tell you, my neck was stretched out in anticipation. My Pawpaw was coming and I expected him any moment.

That may sound like a simple example, but the Lord once told me if people would just expect Him to move as much as a child expects his grandparents to arrive, He could move on their situation and change things drastically by the power of His Spirit.

That’s what happened in Acts 3 to the crippled man at the gate Beautiful. He had been sitting by that gate begging, his head down and his eyes to the ground. But when Peter and John walked by and said, “Look on us!” that man lifted his head and began to expect. Hope rose up in him because he was “expecting to receive something of them.”

What are you hoping for? Life? Health? Something you know you’re called to do? What you’re hoping for is what you’re thinking, speaking and meditating. Line up your thoughts and words with your faith, with your hope. Begin to expect God to move on your situation and change things drastically. Expect him to do something. Expect Him to come on the scene…just like a little child expects his grandparents to arrive.

Speak the Word

“I give heed to God, expecting to receive from Him.”  (Acts 3:5)