Hello, my name is Robert Gay and I pastor High Praise Panama City and I am so glad to have you and I welcome you here to God Today. I want to share some things, today, just about living your life with an attitude of expectation. It is so important that we live our lives in a way that we are believing God for good things to happen to us every day of our lives.
There are many people that live their lives from a position of fatalism. In other words, they just believe whatever happens that must be my fate, that is my lot in life. I want you to know God has something great in store for you. It only happens whenever we begin to live with a confident expectation that good things are going to happen to us. It is truly what the Bible refers to as hope. As a matter of fact, the Bible says that “faith is the substance of things hoped for.” A lot of times whenever you talk about hope, we think in terms of, “I wish they would do something or I wish this would happen, I hope that will happen to me.” The reality is whenever you talk about Bible hope, that is a confident expectation that good things are going to happen within your life.
God’s promises are those things that give us a hope. The Bible even says “hope is an anchor for our soul.” It gives us confidence, it gives us assurance that God loves us and He desires to bring good things into our lives. I know there are some of you that have read the story in Acts 3 about Peter. They are going to the temple and on their way to the temple, there is a man who is lame from birth. He sat there at the gate beautiful, every single day. Think about this for a moment. His lot in life is, “I wake up, I am taken to this place or this position at the gate beautiful. And there I beg all day long.” That’s all he really had to look forward to. If anybody could have had a bad attitude, and if anybody could have lived with no expectation, this man definitely could have lived in that manner.
What is very interesting whenever you read this passage of scripture, what it actually says is that Peter got his attention and said, “Hey, look at me.” The Bible says this that the man, the lame man, “looked at Peter expecting to receive something.” I want to say that again. “He looked at Peter expecting to receive something.” A lot of times we look at Peter and of course his response, “Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, give I thee.” And of course, he said, “In the name of Jesus, get up and walk.” The man actually had a miracle performed in His life.
Many times when we look at that passage we forget that the man looked with an expectation. See, miracles always come on the other side of expectation. If you have an expectation of good things to happen in your life, then that will be the seabed. That will be the ground from which miracles begin to sprout within your life. They will begin to blossom. There will be fruit to come forth in your life as a result of that. The late Dr. Oral Roberts, many years ago had a TV program. I remember even as a teenager growing up, I would watch his TV program at times. It was something he started his program with and then he ended his program with also That was this: “something good is going to happen to you.”
We need to live our lives every day expecting something good to happen to us. Live with an attitude of a Godly, Biblical, good expectation within our lives. Because the reality is going back to the lame man, he could have very well had a very fatalistic outlook, and whenever Peter asked him to look at him he could have just looked at him going, “Hey, do you have anything to give me?” He could have looked at him expecting absolutely nothing. The reality is, in spite of the situation, he still lived with an expectation.
I want you to hear this. Regardless of what’s going on in your life right now, you can live with a good expectation that is founded and based on Biblical promises. Find the Word of God, find the promises of God and allow the hope that comes from those promises begin to rise within your heart. It will make a difference in your life. Your perspective will actually begin to change whenever you begin to live with a good expectation.
I want to pray for you right now. I want you to open up your heart. Father God, I pray for those listening right now. I pray, Father, you would cause this attitude of expectation to arise within their heart. Father God, I pray they would begin to rise with strength and they would be encouraged today. Father God, they wouldn’t just be living to be living, but there is purpose to their life. Father, in the name of Jesus, I uplift them, I pray for them, and Father God, I thank you they are taking hold of this. Lord God, their perspective is changing from this day forward. In Jesus’ name.
Friend, I want to encourage you. Begin to live your life with good expectations. God has great things in store for you. I am Robert Gay and this is God Today.