We need to be careful how we phrase things. I will never place my trust in hope or in prayer, I do have hope and I do pray but my hope is in Christ Jesus alone.
An unbeliever can have faith, yes faith in the wrong things. It matters Who we place our trust, hope, and faith in, and only Jesus Christ will do. Anything else is just mental idol imaginings that mean nothing.
The devil loves it when we "dumb down" the work of Christ by using the concepts to replace our trust in something other than Jesus Christ.
Confusion and good-sounding ideas are the most dangerous to the born-again believer.
Yes hope, yes pray but place your trust not in these ideas but in Jesus Christ Himself. Hope in Christ, pray to God in The name of Jesus Christ.
Hoping in hope, and trusting in prayer is nothing but mental gymnastics without substance.
You understand that the pagan world loves to throw around terms like "I'll pray for you", as though the speaking all by itself unleashes the power of their own to cause things to happen.
The pagan world has all kinds of hope in their own abilities and their own words, its the "name it and claim it" of the pagan world that has infiltrated the church. The only way this can enter the church is for the pew people sitting there every week without a clue what God said in His Word.
All these "name it and claim it" phrases, "hope in hope", "trust in prayer" came out of the paganistic idea that we trust in our own abilities and the power within us to make things happen, this is demonic and so subtle that many Christians are being destroyed by the use of them.
Let us stop repeating things we hear that are popular and begin asking the Holy Spirit for wisdom as we pour over His word to find the truth, refraining from snatching passages out of context to make them say what we want them to say.
Stop asking questions like; "what does that passage mean to you"?
The question to always be asking is "what did God mean by that passage and how does it fit with the rest of the Bible.?"
And lastly, challenge those who use these meaningless and paganistic phrases, explaining where they come from and their lies against the Word of God.
