Hope is NOT a Tactic

Hope- a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen. Wanting something to happen or to be the case.

Tactic-An action or strategy carefully planned to achieve a specific end.

What are you hoping for, or what would you like to happen in your life? A new job, a family, maybe just being able to pay the bills. Clearly non of these desires can happen by just hoping. There must be action. You must work to pay the bills, and you must apply for that job for those bills to be paid. Makes sense. But what about eternity? Are you hoping that you will make it to heaven? Are you hoping that you have done enough good that you can bargain your way in.

Wrong. "As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one." Romans 3:10 Sounds a little crazy, but remember "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" Jeremiah 17:9 So where does our hope fit in? I have heard it said so many ways, "I am a good person", "I did this or that", and there is always the non committal phrase "I am not sure what I believe". These are dangerous positions to be in. Hope is not a tactic.

Coming up with your own strategy for getting to heaven is going to leave you coming up short. "Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able." Mark 13:24

My hope is in the Lord and the Lord alone. "For thou art my hope, O Lord God thou art my trust from my youth. Psalm 71:5 I am a sinner; in fact, I am the chief sinner. I have done the most wrong. I can say this because I only look at my own sin. I can't stand before God for you, only you can do that. Are you ready to stand before God? Are the last things that proceeded out of your mouth words that you can stand before God with?

If you stood before God right now, what is your tactic? Where is your hope? "Jesus saith unto him. I am the way the truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." John 14:6 Do you know the Son? Do you want to? I hope you will take a moment today and trust your eternity to the one who holds it.