TRUE FAITH IS ACCOMPANIED BY EXPECTATION

“According to my earnest expectation and my hope…so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death” (PHILIPPIANS 1:20).

Expectation and faith, though alike, are not identical.

 

An instructed Christian will not confuse the two.

 

True faith is never found alone; it is always accompanied by expectation. The man who believes the promises of God expects to see them fulfilled. Where there is no expectation there is no faith.

 

It is, however, quite possible for expectation to be present where no faith is. The mind is quite capable of mistaking strong desire for faith. Indeed faith, as commonly understood, is little more than desire compounded with cheerful optimism.

 

Real faith is not the stuff dreams are made of; rather it is tough, practical and altogether realistic. Faith sees the invisible, but it does not see the nonexistent. Faith engages God, the one great Reality, who gave and gives existence to all things. God’s promises conform to reality, and whoever trusts them enters a world not of fiction but of fact!

 

Expectation has always been present in the church in the times of her greatest power. When she believed, she expected, and her Lord never disappointed her. His blessings accorded with their expectations, “and blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.”

 

  1. W. Tozer