Hope is a very important thing. It is an eager expectation of something desirable and good, something that when denied feels awful and even devastating. As Christians, we live in constant hope of the Lord's return, so that we can come away with Him into eternity.

As God's people, our hope rests on the finished work of Christ on the cross. Our hope rests on the truth that Christ has defeated sin and death, that God has already forgiven our sins, and that we are His children beloved with no end. Our hope is in God.

Knowing that Christ has already won the victory for us, we have to realize that we should always hope for God's best. We should do away with hopelessness over our circumstance, hopelessness over our poverty, hopelessness over the things we find hard to overcome. Christ has overcome the grave, and therefore we have hope.

To encourage you, dear reader, to hope for God's best always, here are a few reasons why.

1) God will never turn His back on His word

Friends, the Bible tells us that God is faithful, and that He will never turn His back on His own word. What He says will always come to pass, and there should be no doubt about that. Numbers 23:19 tells us,

"God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?"

Many of us stop hoping for something from someone because that someone has broken his word. For some wives, it's their husband's promise to be faithful, and vice-versa. For some children, it's their parents' promise to give them time.

Humans can break promises, but God cannot.

2) Anything that's not of faith is sin

The Bible tells us that "whatever is not from faith is sin" (see Romans 14:23). We've got to have faith in God and hope for His best always. Doubting God is always "not from faith," and therefore should be avoided.

When we don't hope for anything from God anymore, we actually declare that He's hopeless; that there's nothing good that we can expect from Him. This is so wrong! God is always good, and we should always learn to put our hope in Him.

Some of us stop hoping in God because of unanswered prayers. Some stop hoping because a loved one died, even after much prayer. Some stop hoping because their plans don't push through.

What we forget is that He is God. When He doesn't answer our prayers with a "yes" it's for a good reason (see James 4:3, for example). We ought to learn to trust Him.

3) We receive what we ask of God only by faith

Lastly, we can never receive anything that we pray for if we don't have even the slightest amount of faith in Him. Hebrews 11:1 tells us that "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." We've got to have a hope and faith in Him if we desire to receive what we pray for.

The Lord Jesus Himself told us this in Matthew 21:21-22, saying:

"Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' it will be done. And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive."