Hope: Where Can We Find It?

By Roy Anthony MBA

Hope: Where Can We Find It?

This book has laid down a number of hopeful stories with references from the Bible to some contemporaries of our times. Notwithstanding the trials, temptations, or pain we may go through, we can always hold onto the hope God has extended to us.

Believers in Christ and nonbelievers, don't allow your yesterday to steal your today. Your past cannot dictate your today and future. That is what we call hope. Hope backed by faith makes us certain of what we hope for and gives us proof of what we cannot envision.

So where can we find hope? The answer is clear and simple. We can only find hope in Jesus Christ. Jesus did not come only to bring us salvation, but he's our only hope too. We have hope because Jesus has forgiven us our sins and has further converted all of us into his icon as children of the father. Jesus is hope. He finds us rest when there's no hope.

"Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my Hope comes from him. Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge" (Psalms 62:5-7).

Have you ever bothered to read into the promises of God to mankind? Hope is found in all the promises God has given his children. You cannot find Hope anywhere, except in Jesus Christ alone. His promises are yes and amen, and he does not take his words back nor change his mind.

"God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?" (Numbers 23:19)

Hope is found in the promises God has given us, so why do you doubt the promises of God? We doubt it because his timing is not ours. The Scripture says in James 1:6, "If we doubt while we ask, we will not receive anything from Him, because we are unsteady. He who doubts is like a wave of the sea blown and tossed by the wind."

As salvation is found in no one else but in Christ, so is hope. It's found in no other but in Christ Jesus. Keep your hope alive in Jesus, not in man.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9798889431671

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Hope

Where Can We Find It?

Roy Anthony MBA, PhD

ISBN 979-8-88943-166-4 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88943-167-1 (digital)

Copyright © 2023 by Roy Anthony MBA, PhD

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1

Christ—Our Living Hope

Chapter 2

Desperate Situations

Chapter 3

Jabez Story of Hope

Chapter 4

God Promises—Jehoshaphat and Judah

Chapter 5

Lack of Trust and Faith in the Lord

Chapter 6

Finding Rest in the God of Hope

Chapter 7

Joseph Triumph in time of Injustice

Chapter 8

Characters Neglected but Became Heroes

Chapter 9

Rejected and Scorned

Chapter 10

The Man Moses and Hope—Remarkable Humility Emphasized

Chapter 11

It's Not Late in Life to Do Anything

Chapter 12

Desperate Times in Desperate World

Chapter 13

Hope Requires Faith, Prayer, and Action

Chapter 14

There Is Hope for You

Final Thoughts

Prayer for Faith, Hope, Salvation

References

About the Author

Notes

I dedicate this book firstly to the Word of our Lord God and lastly to my family, for standing the test of times in our life. Our hope is found in no other but in Christ Jesus.

Nothing can stop us to proclaim the glory of the Lord to all nations. Once, life was murky and upside down, devoid of answers. The only cling was a grip to our Lord, our hope.

The battle with unknown forces of the world was at work from the roots. We thank our Lord God and acknowledge that he was completing the revelation of what Jesus Christ did for me and my family on the cross. I frankly believe that he set us free from our iniquities and transgressions and broke all curses. God has given me and my family a testimony and a new song as a family to profess and sing.

In general, this book is also dedicated to those who have one way or the other gone through similar and even worse circumstances than us, and all the one-time hopefuls that have lost all hope and think they have nowhere to turn.

To all of these individuals, be assured that there is always an answer and resolution to your dilemma. Christ is our hope, and Christ in us the hope of glory. In Christ alone, there is hope, peace, and joy. Storms of despair cannot steal our hope in Christ

This book is for you. Believe the Word, lurk in it, and you will find your peace and joy through Christ Jesus. In him alone is the answer, but not from any man, not from politicians or governments. He came to save us from all our predicaments, restore us, and gave us love, peace, and joy if we will focus on him as our hope. We have a hope of eternal life, which means that we can start today with renewed vigor and strength. A Christian's hope isn't an escape or wishful thinking, but something that a Christian is meant to do (C. S. Lewis).

Hope quashes insecurity and brings security to the faithful ones and to those who believe, so our target is to trust the Lord Jesus as our Hope. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? (Romans 8:24 ESV).

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope (Romans 15:13 ESV).

With the spirited understanding of God's promises held for us as Christians, there is no barrier to the things we hope for in life.

Uphold me according to your promise, that I may live, and let me not be put to shame in my hope! Hold me up, that I may be safe and have regard for your statutes continually (Psalm 119:116–117 ESV).

Dear beloved, I hope by the time you finish reading this book, your story would be fully written. Christ alone is our hope; there is no other but him. And now, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in you (Psalm 39:7 ESV).

May the Almighty God bless you and strengthen you.

Acknowledgments

All too often, we tend to forget to thank and acknowledge our glorious Father. I am eternally grateful to you my Lord God for all the wonderful things you have done in my life—not material things but insight into life, family, and the ability to know you more and more every day of my life.

So if I, a nobody who does not deserve the mercy and Salvation by any right, can call myself a servant of the Lord, let alone a child of God, then it is a great privilege I should not underestimate but to honor and be so thankful for his love and peace within my soul in every day of my life.

To this, I would firstly like to acknowledge the Lord and glorify his holy name for the many blessings he has provided in the life of my family and me.

I would like to offer my huge gratitude to our pastor, Robbie Symons, of Hope Bible Church, Oakville, Ontario, Canada. His powerful and unbending sermons have given us fortitude in our faith and hope in our spiritual relationship with the Lord God.

I would also like to acknowledge our long-time spiritual father Apostle Andrew Asare of Omega Church, Brampton, Canada, formerly Faith Christian Center, who never gave up on my family and me but tirelessly encouraged us with our walk with Christ with the Word of our Lord. I cannot thank him enough for his devotion. He never gave up on us throughout all the darkest period of our life.

Reverend Andrew brought my family and me back into the kingdom of the Lord. I remember vividly well that in one of his home visits and biblical counseling in our home, lifting the Bible and saying, Brother Roy, there is no magic and anything to life more than this book—the Bible. This is the key to life spiritually and naturally. Those words reverberated into my entire frame and changed my life completely henceforth.

To this point, I would also like to acknowledge Pastor Joe (Joseph) Sechere of Hamburg, Germany, who has tremendously been of great help and encouragement in our Christian faith as a family from past to present. Pastor Sechere is no doubt a true man of God and a great mentor and a teacher of the Word of God for our family. He has been a fuel for the spiritual power of the Gospel of Christ. Distance has not been a factor for our periodic prayer time and Bible sessions with him.

I would render my gratitude and thanks to my fellow Christian families around the earth who support and supported us with prayers whenever we called upon them.

My special thanks to my sister-in-law, Cecilia Boateng—queen of hearts—and my sister, Jane Antwi, the prayer warrior, who I cannot end this acknowledgment without recognizing them for their immense contribution of love. I would always cherish you wherever you are.

Many thanks to the Shakells, our family friends in Christ, north of Barrie, Ontario. Glen and Pam has been more than friends—true friends that bless our souls. God has given us the fruit of love to love and be loved. We are the greatest beneficiaries.

To cousins, Fifi George Yeboah, Ronald Brenya, and all the others, I acknowledge you all. I pray and hope the Lord will touch everyone's soul to be used for the kingdom's work.

Psalm 107:8–9 says, Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness, And for His wonderful works to the children of men! For He satisfies the longing soul And fills the hungry soul with goodness.

Without hope, we can never fully trust in God with all our hearts. "Hope is grasping for what we can't see, but we believe because of the assurance in our hearts from God." Hope is an essential part of our faith, so without faith, there is no hope.

Thank you, Jesus!

Introduction

Hope for the hopeless

Hope. Where can we find it? What do we do when we find it? Many do not also believe in hope because of their beliefs, to a large extent. Others have skeptical views and cannot make up their minds to envision its authenticity as illustrated by the Scripture. So here we are to present to all readers the reality of hope in life for Christians and even non-Christians who believe in hope or not. In a simple and short term, hope is found in no other but in Christ Jesus.

Hence, this book is not just another book of rambling and ranting to inspire individuals but rather to present and encourage people with real-life experiences of others who lost hope or thought there was no such thing as hope in life. It's also for others who know there is hope in the Lord but have lost it all because of an ugly encounter in their life. I am sure many will lay hands on the book to read and relate on current and past stumbles in life and to pick up some lessons for strength and corrections for each undercurrent. For this reason, for those going through some kind of social and spiritual challenges, this book will uplift you.

If God has restored my life, then the same God will do more for you in your situation.

Read on and be filled with spiritual strength from the God who is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent every day and every night of our life. He is always an ever-present Father working on our needs, including the millions of near misses of dangers. He fixes what we don't know or have no knowledge about it.

This script is a complete life chronicle and nothing fictional in any sense to inspire you. Attest it to your life and bear your testimony. God can do all things over and beyond your imagination. He is our hope. If you fail to trust him with your problems without recognizing him, you will cast a shadow on your belief. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen (Ephesians 3:20–21 ESV).

God will not also allow any temptation that will come to you without providing an escape for you. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it (1 Corinthians 10:13 ESV).

The only way that hopelessness and failure can get the last word in our life is if we choose to let it. We serve a God who can take our defeats and missteps and still use us to bring glory to his name. He's the Lord God of hope. He turns the impossibilities into possibilities, and when it happens, we call it a miracle. He's always in the miracle business. He creates rivers in the desert places where there's no fountain and shut the lion's mouth in the den for Daniel.

Irrespective of who you are and regardless of race or creed, the Lord God has a plan for your life. The ability to decide on a course of action for everything you do is of paramount importance in the Lord's plan. You should place your faith in the Lord; trust and hope in him. Whether you've had stumbles along the way in your life, the Lord of hope is always calling you to look up to him, to reach out to hold his outstretched hands. He is always ready to pick you up by his grace through your faith in him—salvation. He will not forsake you if you commit your problems to him in prayer and with an open heart.

There is nothing God can't do. There are no battles he can't win. No hearts are too hard for him to change. He is not afraid of our sins. There is no turmoil he cannot put right. Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you (Jeremiah 32:17 ESV).

Some of us might have experienced one or multiple situations in life with these examples: the death of a parent as a child or at a very tender age; the death of own child as a parent; the loss of a wife or husband; some disastrous calamity of an unimaginable proportion or living with a chronic illness.

Many have other issues and have tried their best to come out, but they see no end in sight. For instance: a business failure; a job loss; bankruptcy; difficulty in finding a husband or wife. These instances are real-life situations that many people are facing today.

Here is my advice: If you are a Christian, you must take solace in the fact that you are still loved by God, and his plan for you is still unchanged. Your answer is found in Christ Jesus through hope. He is our hope for a happy ending to our hopeless turmoil. And to the unbeliever, there's no sanction on you for the unconditional love of Christ. Just draw near to him and accept him as your Savior into the family.

Many times, we misuse the word hope, losing its biblical core meaning. Hope is to believe; hope is a certainty; even though we don't know the result, we believe it to be positive in the end. Making statements like I hope so or I am hoping to go through successfully loses your trust in Jesus. Such statements are uncertain!

If you are facing a problem, and you don't have confidence that the Lord will answer, the expected result won't be received. We don't say, I hope Jesus Christ will do it as if it might happen or it might not. You should be confident that you will get the result by all means through Jesus. He is your hope; he is my hope. The problem for many Christians is that they lack the courage and confidence in the power of Jesus Christ. If you're not confident that the Lord is going to perform graciously and powerfully on your behalf for whatever circumstances you are facing, then you have no hope in Christ. Hope is to believe confidently in the power of Jesus Christ for the result you are seeking.

Every so often, God's plan includes a miraculous rescue, and other times, the situation is to let us grow stronger in the Lord amid hardship. Our Lord God knows all and has authority over everything that was, is, and is to come. The Lord is not surprised by anything, and he has made a plan for each of us.

I pray that the Lord of hope will strengthen us all in building our faith and hope, for "our hope is found in no other but in Christ Jesus." This is where we can find hope.

Chapter 1

Christ—Our Living Hope

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

—1 Peter 1:3 (ESV)

Every professed Christian has been tested in one way or the other in life. Call it despair, grief, wretchedness, woes, dejection, depression—these are times of hopelessness. They are not pretty moments in our lives. Many will say, I would not wish it on even my worst enemies; some will say, I don't wish it on anybody. They all signify the moments of our darkest but not glory days.

To those who believe in the Lord, you are not alone in this, and you are never alone in your desolation and hopelessness because God is always near the grief-stricken and those who are defeated in spirit—this is our promise from the Lord God. When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all (Psalm 34:17–19 ESV).¹

To say my life, including my family, was stale for well over a decade would be an understatement. There are no words or phrases elsewhere in the repertoire of my vocabulary to describe this abject interlude in my life. This murky and wretched pain was contained within prayer of trust, faith, and hope in Christ. That period in our life is called the dark years but was all meant for good. I've never looked back, but I would like to cite it briefly to encourage readers.

Beloved, if we made it through, trust me that you can do it with your focus on the Lord. Your keys are simply trust, faith, and hope in the Lord with fervent prayer and not looking back. You cannot reverse the clock, but you can move with the clock going forward. Trust the Lord, listen to his voice, discern into signs, work practically on it, have faith, and visualize the Lord in front of you in your prayers as your hope. You have to press on. Your hope is only found in him and no other power but Christ Jesus.

The secular world won't help you, politicians won't help you, and the secular world can't promise you anything. The secular world would come with all the promises of change and hope, but they are vague pledges. Jesus Christ is our only hope in all our circumstances.

With him, all the wealth of the Gentiles shall be ours, if only and if we will see him as our hope and trust in him for certain. I am neither writing about prosperity preaching nor setting a tone for prosperity mindset here. It is an added blessing if you don't sit idle waiting for manna but act on it and create one with the support of prayers, trust, and hope in Christ Jesus.

With fervent prayers in the spirit, get up and activate your life in the natural

But to those going through financial difficulties—a major problem of Christ's followers—this is your starting point of encouragement for hope in Christ. Start with incessant fervent prayer; get off from your chair to commence something that will bring God's promise in Isaiah 61:5–6 into fruition (ESV). If it is business, your competition will be less, and consumer traffic would be at the doorstep of your operation. a way to bring the wealth of the heathen (secularist) to you. I cannot explain it in any way better than this. That would be a miracle of a fountain pouring into your storehouse eternally.

You cannot fold your hands and stay home all day to expect the heathens to walk in and hand their wealth to you. Of course not—that is not what I mean, and that is not what Isaiah talked about. And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers. But ye shall be named the Priests of the Lord: men shall call you the Ministers of our God: ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and in their glory shall ye boast yourselves (Isaiah 61:5–6 KJV). The work is already performed and completed in the spiritual realm of his holiness—your part is to take the walk of faith and focus on him as your hope and act.

To complete this book on hope and where we can find it, I am going to also align some of the real-life stories of the most successful personalities in the Bible and the secular world of our time. The secular world or secularism is simply the world of individuals who are not believers in the Lord God. We live with them, but we are not secularists. They have very vague ideas of hope or hope in the Lord God.

Secularism permeates all facets of our society today from education, government, the criminal justice system, the news media, the entertainment industry, and many others. The secularists believe that man is the measure of all things, that morals are man-centered, not God-centered. Therefore, no one is entitled to determine right from wrong, and morality is best determined by what is good for today's culture. What a travesty of thoughts!

Don't give in to secularism for answers to hopelessness

The secularist does not believe in what the Christians call hope in Christ. Secularists do not believe that mankind can have a set of permanent values that are taught in the Bible. Secularism pays lip service to tolerance and diversity, yet many times secularists are intolerant of those who look to the Bible as God's standard for morality. Don't sell your soul—period.

The more the world embraces secularism, the more it becomes like ancient Israel, where everyone did what was right in his own eyes. In those days there was no king in Israel. Every man did that which was right in his own eyes (Judges 17:6 ESV).

When the mindset is there, no boundaries to anything, and you are free to compromise and whatever you feel good about, wickedness, perversion, and sin become the norm.

In a completely secularized society, marriage is disparaged, morality is mocked, and human life is devalued. That is the secular norm.

I don't want to deviate from the topic of hope in Christ to secularism, which in itself is a big discussion. The brief narrative is to bring your attention to focusing on the Lord as your hope and your answer to hopelessness. The unfortunate situation is that most Christians today are caving in to the line of liberal churches doctoring; accordingly, it makes a lot of Christians lose focus on hope in Christ. A mix of liberal doctoring and secular philosophies are becoming the albatross of our Christian faith, thereby plunging us into several of the problems we encounter as Christians, leading us to hopelessness.

These are some of the missteps a lot of Christians find themselves caught up in for the simple reason that some churches have given in to secularism. It is very easy to get yourself caught up in it, but if you are prayerful, you will, by all means, discover it and pull it out. It is very easy, for instance, to engage yourself in scornful conversations or sit in scornful gatherings; that makes it so easier for the devil to steal your attention and drag you. But if you ascertain the problem, commit it into prayers, there's always hope for you to be redeemed.

A personal account

This brings me back to a recounting of my private business past and also to use other personalities as an encouragement to all that have lost hope in life because of similar reasons.

But let me encourage every reader here that failure is not lethal; failure is not the end of success. Failure is not isolation, failure is not shameful, and failure is not cemented that you should not get up. You can get up, regardless of how hard the fall is.

I believe this personal experience in the ensuing passage among other examples of biblical personalities, and the world around us today will also help you to spring into action to assist you in building your faith and trust in Christ. When it does occur to you or anyone else, the best practice, spiritually, is to get up, never give up—look up to God, for he is always waiting to receive you in his outstretched hands. He is all-loving, and he is our hope.

In brief, entrusting people and wrong business associations was my dilemma, but I never gave up. Each time I hit the ground, I got up, looked up to the skies, and pointed my second finger up to the heavens and said Oh Lord God of Israel, if you have done it for others, you will do it for me too. You are my hope, there is none but you. And sure, I believed