Hope, the Anchor of our Soul - HOPE 5 - David Mitts

In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, (Heb 6:17-19 NASB) 

Click here to listen to "Hope, the Anchor of our Soul" 

Hope anchors our soul, our mind, will and our emotions to God’s destiny for us.  

“Human beings can live for forty days without food, four days without water, and four minutes without air. But we cannot live for one second without hope” 

We live in times where mighty winds are blowing design to make us feel unanchored. The Bible calls these forces winds of doctrine. Look with me Ephesians 4:14-15: 

As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, (Eph 4:14-15 NASB)  

Winds of doctrine: most people naturally relate to the word doctrine as an expression of belief platforms for religion.  This is actually itself a doctrine!  There is a doctrine that separates religion and religious beliefs from “real life”. I want to broaden the thinking about doctrines that would have existed at the time of the gospels and the writings of Paul and the disciples.  Doctrines were tribal organizational beliefs and practices.  They were the core definitions of who you were, spirit, soul, and body. 

The Pharisees were doctrine experts and through the customs, they added to the Words of God given through Moses, they shifted who Israel was in their own understanding. Yeshua wasn’t just challenging a set of practices but also the effect those practices had on how people thought about God, each other and the world they inhabited. He challenged this reality in Mark 7:13 

thus invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down; and you do many things such as that."(Mar 7:13 NASB) 

Invalidating the word of God is a powerful declaration.  This is the impact of traditions or doctrines, which align people with a different belief core which changes who they are.  At their core, doctrines defined and thus divided people. Today, doctrines divide people. Today though, we have doctrines that look like race, political affiliations, age groups, gender definitions, liberal, conservative or independent. We don’t call them, doctrines because we don’t think of them that way, but they are. 

Paul tells us that there is the trickery of men behind the doctrines, craftiness and deceitful scheming. He also parallels it to childish thinking, unstable and poorly formed. Doctrines form who we think we are as, therefore, affect what we trust in. An atheist trusts in himself.  All doctrines shift us away from the one true God and His love. 

How does this affect our hope? It diminishes it.  When our hope is anchored to the wind then it is extremely fickle and unstable. 

The opposite is God’s plan for us, the hope of our future that anchors our soul. His plan transcends doctrines and operates in and by love. The key truth of God which transcend doctrines is His love, His oneness and unity.  

The most ancient prayer is called the sh’ma.  It is first stated in Deuteronomy 6:4: 

"Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! (Deu. 6:4 NASB) 

The prayer declares the unity of God.  Since we are created in His image, then we are also created for unity, oneness.  Yeshua prayed this for us: 

"The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.(Joh 17:22-23 NASB) 

A few observations in this scripture: 

1. The method of unity is glory 

2. The goal of glory is unity 

3. Unity perfects the image 

4. The image reveals God’s love. 

Let’s discuss these as they relate to hope as the anchor for our soul. First, what does it mean that He gives us His glory to bring us into unity? What is our hope based on? Really? Let’s turn to Colossians 1:26-27: 

that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.(Col 1:26-27 NASB) 

God’s glory, His identity, which is what Glory actually means, is revealed as a mystery, manifested to us, the saints, as Christ in us, which is called the hope of glory.  What am I saying? Christ, the anointing from God, that we received when we received Yeshua, the unction to function, is the power generator for our hope.  It is the anointing which lives in our inner man, that anchors our souls to our destiny.  

But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things. (1Jn 2:20 NKJV) 

And because the anointing is one, unified across our differences then it brings us into unity.  There isn’t my anointing or your anointing.  That is gibberish because there isn’t my Christ of yours!  There is just one anointing that comes from Him who unifies us.  This is why Paul chastised the Corinthians when they wanted to personalize the anointing! Look at 1Corinthians 1:10-13 

Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment. For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe's people, that there are quarrels among you. Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, "I am of Paul," and "I of Apollos," and "I of Cephas," and "I of Christ." Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?(1Co 1:10-13 NASB) 

The true anointing unifies and causes us to be humble. This is the goal of the Glory of God, to make us one.  Our hope is NOT in our differences and our divisions, doctrines! No! The anointing transcends our differences and makes us ONE.  Our hope is in that oneness. 

What’s at stake is the image of God? People only know God through His people.  If we are divided, then the hope dies for them. Our divisiveness is what kills our hope and the hope for others too.  Our divisiveness, our doctrines are all about being right. 

"If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.(Mar 3:24 NASB) 

They throw us back into the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  We become judgmental and it steals the image of God. Let’s return to scripture from James: 

What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: "He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us"?(Jas 4:1-5 NASB) 

This is what the doctrines produce and steals the hope of His Glory and the image of God. Can you feel the worldliness of the verse the anti-God message? 

You see it is our competition about our anointing, our denomination, our doctrines that causes the world to suspect our motives.  People cannot see Jesus in us as so they cannot have hope.  

This leaves them and us unanchored.  To restore our moorings and reconnect to hope, we need to abandon divisiveness.  The world will not know us by our opinions, our righteous indignation at the sin! No Yeshua said they will know us by our love. 

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. "By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."(Joh 13:34-35 NASB) 

Being identified as His disciple is the key to our hope.  He is the hope in our hearts and the promise of glory.  Our destiny is revealed as vessels of the image of His love.  We are called to be a living testimony of His love in the earth. 

This is the anchor of our souls.  Since we are truly all the Jesus the world can know we need to be the living sacrifice that reveals His love. As Romans 12:1-2 tells us: 

Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. (Rom 12:1-2 NASB) 

The world operates in a system of divisions, doctrines. God operates in unity, oneness.  We need to constantly have our mind cleansed from the conforming patterns of the world which seek to polarize us and have us return to consuming our own judgments and opinions.  

Be wary of the many false prophets, the voices in the Land that try to divide and create an army of one opinion.  Remember God’s first command was to warn us about making a graven image of God.  He holds us accountable for how we re-present Him because truly He is the only hope for our world, which is the anchor for our soul. Peter echoes the same warning, 2 Peter 2 

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.(2Pe 2:1-3 NASB) 

This is the hour to up our game. Hope for all of humanity is anchored to Christ in us as the anchor for our soul. It’s time to lay down our need to be right and to pursue love. 

Activation: 

Let’s recover our hope by renouncing any pet doctrines we have labeled ourselves with. As comfortable as the labels make us feel because we feel part of something bigger, the greater contains the lesser. Let's return to love and Jesus as our one and only label. Pray now and ask God what false affiliations you have added to the purity of Jesus and repent.