According to the Word of God, hopelessness isn't caused by lack of money. It isn't caused by lack of education. It isn't caused by negative circumstances. Hopelessness comes from being without God in the world. It comes from being a stranger to His covenant.
Anybody anywhere can have hope if they know Jesus and the covenant promises of God.
Your background, race or financial status doesn't matter. You can live in the worst ghetto in the world and still have hope in God because He isn't limited by man's resources. He isn't limited by man's prejudices. God is an equal opportunity employer!
Some people have said to me, "You ought not preach that prosperity message in poverty-stricken areas. You'll get those people's hopes up, and they don't have the same opportunity to prosper that you do."
Yes, they do!
I've seen God prosper people in places where there was absolutely nothing - no food, no jobs or no welfare program. Nothing! There is one country in Africa where the government wanted a tribe to die out, so they just stopped the flow of food and began to starve them to death. But that plan failed because some Holy Ghost-filled, African Christians refused to give up hope. They knew their covenant, so they prayed, "Give us this day our daily bread." Do you know what happened? Those people got fed, and the government went under!
More Than Wishful Thinking
Understand this, though. When I say "hope," I'm not talking about the weak, wishful-thinking kind of attitude most people call hope. Real Bible hope isn't a wish. Hebrews 11:1 says, "faith is the substance of things hoped for...." There's no room for faith in wishing! For example, take the statement "I sure do wish God would bless me financially." There's no place in that statement for faith. It just won't plug in anywhere.
Why don't we see more hope in the Body of Christ? Because it is born out of the promises of God's covenant. And most Christians are using their believing faculties to believe some sort of religious system that men have designed instead of believing the Word of God. Despite the fact that they're born again with the seed of hope inside them, baptized in the Holy Spirit and walking around with a Bible tucked under their arm, they've become strangers to the covenants of promise.
You can tell those folks that 2 Corinthians 8:9 says Jesus became poor so we might be rich, and they'll answer, "Oh, yes, amen. I know it says that, Brother. But I just don't know whether to take the Bible literally or not."
The reason they don't know whether or not to take the Bible literally is because they're not spending any time in the Word as a covenant. That's what the word testament means. Did you know that? The New Testament is the New Covenant! It's not some kind of religious book. It is God's will and testament written down. It is a covenant of promise. It is God's blood-sworn oath.
When I pick up the New Testament, I'm not just reading a history book. I'm reading a copy of God's will and testament, and in my mind, I have Jesus by the hand and His blood is flowing down my wrist. Once you get a revelation like that, hope is no problem!
Figure in the Anointing
With those things in mind, let's go back to Ephesians 2 and dig a little deeper into what God is telling us about hope: "For we are (God's) workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them" (v. 10).
Before we read any further, I want you to stop for a moment and notice the phrase "created in Christ Jesus." To truly understand that phrase, you need to realize that the word Christ is a Greek word. Why the English translators failed to translate it, I don't know. But that failure has cost us a great revelation.
You see, the word Christ isn't Jesus' last name. It's not a title. It's a word with a very significant meaning. Christ actually means "Anointed." To anoint is literally "to pour on, smear all over, or rub into." So the Anointing of God is to have God poured on, smeared all over and rubbed into.
Now, let's go back and read Ephesians 2, translating the word Christ:
"Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh...ye were without (the Anointed One), being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: But now in (the Anointed) Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of (the Anointed One)." (vv. 11-13)
According to those scriptures, before you were born again, you were without the Anointed One. Well, if you were without the Anointed One, you were also without the anointing, right? But now, you are in the anointing of Jesus. That anointing is available to you in every situation to destroy (obliterate completely!) every yoke of bondage.
That's why you can have hope in the most hopeless situations. It doesn't matter who you are or what color your skin is. It doesn't matter if you never made it past the sixth grade. You can break out of that hopeless situation if you'll factor in the anointing.
The anointing factor is what the world always forgets. They say, "We'll build this wall so big nobody will ever get through it. We'll build it big enough to block out the gospel and keep the people under our thumb." But they fail to figure in the anointing factor. It will destroy that wall. If you don't believe it, ask the believers in Berlin!
I strongly suggest you begin factoring in the anointing in your life from this moment forward. If someone says, "Well, brother, you can't expect to succeed. You can't expect to prosper. You can't expect to get healed..." ask yourself if there is a yoke holding you back. If the answer is yes, then rejoice because the anointing will destroy it!
Don't Be a Stranger
Nothing is too big a problem when you figure in the anointing! So take hold of that anointing by beginning to expect. Start expecting something good to happen to you. Lay hold of the hope that's set before you in the promises of God.
Don't be a stranger to those promises. Dig into them, find out what God has said about your situation. Then start saying, "I expect it because God promised it!"
The Bible says Abraham hoped against hope (Rom. 4:18). He used the hope of the promise of God to fight against the natural "hope" (or hopelessness) that told him it would be impossible for Sarah and him to have a child.
Romans 4:21 says he was "fully persuaded that, what (God) had promised, he was able also to perform." Now, Abraham wasn't always fully persuaded. There was a time after God had promised to give him a child when he asked, "How can I know these things will happen?"
God answered him by cutting a covenant with him. Abraham killed the covenant sacrifice animals, split them down the center, laid the halves opposite each other and God walked in the blood of those animals. I believe with all my heart that Abraham saw God's footprints in that blood.
From then on, Abraham's soul was anchored. His mind couldn't argue with him. His emotions couldn't argue with him. His old, dead body couldn't argue with him. His barren wife couldn't argue with him. That covenant put an end to all arguments. From then on, Abraham was fully persuaded. Fully expectant.
Anchor Your Soul
God has made covenant with you just as surely as He made it with Abraham. But instead of making it in the blood and bodies of animals, He made it with the broken body and shed blood of His own Son, Jesus the Anointed One. That's what should be on your mind when you take Communion.
Hebrews 6:17-19 says: "Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: That by two immutable (unchangeable) things (the body and the blood of Jesus), in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast...."
Friend, we have hope because we're in blood covenant with Almighty God! Through Jesus we have access to Him. We "are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God!" (Eph. 2:19)
When we're confronted by impossible situations in this world, we have a covenant right to factor in Jesus! Factor in the power of His Word! Factor in His Anointing!
Some say, "That sounds too easy." No, it's not easy! When the devil begins to tighten the noose of hopelessness around your neck with poverty or sickness or some other terrible situation, you have to fight and fight hard. Not by burning buildings and robbing stores - but by grabbing hold of the hope in the Word and using it to demolish every thought that would rise up against it.
"Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ" (2 Cor. 10:5).
The battleground where hope is won or lost is not on the streets, it's in the mind. It's in the imagination where expectancy begins to take form. So take your stand on that battleground. Begin now to expect the anointing to destroy the yokes in your life and in the life of your nation.
Begin now to expect God to keep His covenant promises to you. Fight for that expectancy in the Name of Jesus. Take your hope, fill it with faith and storm the gates of hell. They will not prevail against you or your country!
Eagle Mountain International Church, Inc.
aka: Kenneth Copeland Ministries