Chapter 4
Jesus
 

John 2:1-2

Just the fact that Jesus was in the room brought hope. The people had run out of wine but the presence of Jesus meant possibility. His presence alone sparked hope. Mary saw the need and looked to Jesus. She didn’t continue to look at the empty containers. She looked to Jesus with hope. Here is the problem, could it be that the answer is sitting right here with us?

In 1 Corinthians13:13 we read that there remains faith, hope and love. These three working together are a stable and unmovable force. These three will remain when all else has failed. But it takes all three working together to represent the true heart of God. Faith without love will become arrogant and selfish. Faith without hope is weak and powerless because it is discouraged. You need your faith to be mixed with these other two. You can have all the faith in the world. You can have faith with you all along but many times it’s hope that you’re lacking. And once you recognize that Jesus is with you then hope has begun.

Hope gives a word for faith to act on. People often equate the Word of God to faith because of the scripture that says that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. (Romans

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Jesus spoke a word of hope that, when acted upon in faith, met the need. Hope speaks and faith acts. Many people say that it’s your faith doing the talking, but you can’t speak in faith without hope. Without hope, faith has nothing to say. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. (Hebrews 11:1). You start with a word of hope—a word of promise. And it’s a word of promise that Jesus brings to you. You don’t need more faith. Don’t make the walk of faith a difficult walk. Even Jesus said that if you just had faith as a grain of mustard seed than nothing would be impossible to you.

So we see that Jesus’ presence alone brought hope, but how did Jesus make this hope something tangible for them to grab hold of? He gave them words. He gave them instructions. Just His presence alone won’t do it. As He is approached with intercessory love, then tangible words are spoken for one to put to action. The Bible is full of words of hope and promise. We need those written words. And we also need a prophetic word of hope. You need a word specifically for you and your situation. Thank God that He gives you both. Both the written Word and the prophetic word for today. God is not withholding words of hope from you. You need them, and when you receive them in faith they will bring life to your situation.

The church has been taught that great faith will make bold declarations. But bold declarations of faith are not intended to replace prayer or asking and seeking Him. Bold confessions of faith are really meant to be what you say in your everyday conversations. What you need is a word from Him and you don’t need to just repeat what He says, but do what He says. We don’t see the servants repeating what Jesus told them to do. They had received His words and incorporated them into their actions. If someone would have asked them what they were doing in the course

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The words of Jesus were the thing that made reality out of hope. You need His words! And thank God we have the Bible and we have the Spirit of God to give us a fresh prophetic word of hope for one another. A word from God contains the power that when acted on in faith one will receive their need met. We need to ask the Lord to give us words of hope and encouragement, words that will carry His power of deliverance and provision to each other.

Remember the story of the friend at midnight? (Luke 11:5-10). This came as a part of Jesus’ teaching His disciples how to pray. He told them to be persistent in their prayers. When you keep on asking, keep on seeking and keep on knocking then you will receive your answer. In order to have this kind of persistence in prayer you need to keep a hold of hope. Not just faith, because faith is not looking at the circumstances anyway. But you need to keep hope so that you will not become discouraged. It’s through hope that you’re able to keep going without giving up. It’s because of hope that you’re able to deal with the details of your overwhelming circumstances and not lose courage and focus. You need to be able to look at your circumstances through the eyes of hope. Faith doesn’t look at the circumstances, but you still need to address your circumstances. You need to deal with your problems even while you believe God will bring you out of those problems. There are certain things you can’t ignore, they have to be dealt with. And you can deal with them because you have hope. While you are looking at these circumstances you look at them through the eyes of hope and then you have the strength and courage to continue. Hope is what keeps you knocking, asking and seeking. Hope
keeps you going.

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Under the Old Covenant the Lord told the people to seek out and gather at the place where He put His Name. (Deut.12:5). That would be where He chose for His presence to be. Similarly, when we gather in His Name today, His presence is there in our midst. And if He is there then hope is there. And once we gather together in His Name and lovingly intercede for one another then we are in a position to hear a word from the Lord. In order for deliverance to come He needs to speak and we need to hear. Intercessory love motivates Him to speak a word of deliverance, but we need to make sure we are close enough to Him so we can hear it. We need to stay close to Him so we can hear Him speak to us. For ourselves, and also for others.

When you are going through tough times, you need to remember this time. You may want to forget it as soon as possible but He says to remember so you can have His compassion. The scripture in Proverbs 31:6-7 which says to give strong drink to him who is ready to perish and
wine to those who are of heavy hearts is not saying that we should drink alcohol to escape our problems! What that means is that alcohol is given as a medicine to those who are preparing for

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Remember that the experience of going through times of tribulation produces hope. Because of the patience and enduring characteristics you develop during the tough times you can carry a message of hope for the future. The times that seem to be the most hopeless for you are the places where the greatest hope is manufactured. And this "hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit…" (Romans 5:5 NAS). The love of God keeps your hope from being disappointed.

When Jesus is present you have hope. You come and present the need to Him. And even if it seems like God is saying its not the right time, love (for Him first then others) makes it the right time. The loving intercession of another moved Jesus to speak the word, which the servants
acted on, and the need was met. An intercessor drew from the presence of the Lord the miraculous power necessary to meet a need. Love moves Jesus to speak.

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