We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of our God and Father…I Thessalonians 1:2-3 NKJV

There are three things in this verse that stand out to me: (1) faith can work, (2) love can labor, and (3) hope can give you patience.

If we feel we have faith, yet do nothing, we don’t really have faith.  If we say we have love, yet do nothing, we don’t really have love.  If we say we have hope, then we will be patient until we see the manifestation of what God has for us.

HOPE in the Hebrew means “rope.”  I believe God lets His rope down from Heaven so we can tie a knot in it and hold onto it until we see the manifestation of our faith and our love.

Rahab had hope in God’s Word.  She even put a red rope in her window (see Joshua 2).  Her wall stood when other walls fell.  When other people’s walls fall down, their lives fall down too.  If you hold onto the rope of God’s hope, however, your wall will stand.

Dear Heavenly Father, we know that it is through faith and patience that we inherit Your promises.  We make a decision to hold to faith and to have patience until we see the fulfillment of Your promises.  In Jesus’s Name, Amen.