(Originally written on June 16, 2015)

In context, this verse is talking about believers purifying themselves (ourselves) because of their (our) hope in Christ. There is a truth that I would like to extract from this verse. This morning the Spirit of God spoke to me and he used this verse to show me the following lesson.

You can identify what your expectations are by what you are willing to let go of to have them. If you are not willing to let go of the things that are preventing you from having what you want, then you have not truly stepped into hope. What is holding believers back from receiving is not the devil. What’s holding believers back is their unwillingness to let go of the things that hinder their progress. 

They want God to give them something while they hold on to what is holding them back. Let’s use weight loss for example. A person will say they want to lose weight, but they hold on to poor ways of eating and they hold on to the couch. Real Bible hope would do the following instead. Decide what you want to look and feel like. See yourself like the finished you. Add the ingredients into your life that make for fitness, such as exercise. And eliminate the things that caused you to get up to the weight you find yourself at now.  

There has to be a laying aside of the weight that so easily besets you. The more stuff you carry, the more energy you have to spend to get to your destination. This causes you to spend more time en route because of the load you’re carrying.

We have been duped into believing we need something else to manifest our desires, but in truth, we need to let some things go.

Bruce Lee became the greatest fighter ever because of what he was willing to walk away from. He separated himself from the things that didn’t contribute to being a great fighter. But he was able to separate himself from the things that held him back because of his expectation. His hope purged him of every trace of coward and he became the best at what he did because of it.

What are you willing to walk away from in order to walk into what you truly want to have in life? You cannot walk into your destiny until you let go of the things that hold you where you are right now.