In II Timothy 4:6-7 the Apostle Paul wrote: “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith …”. There are some who might have criticized the Apostle Paul in these verses for seeming to “give up.” He didn’t seem to “have faith” for his deliverance, or hold out any hope for release. Instead he said, “The time of my departure has come.” His famous 3-fold phrases are all PAST tense: “I HAVE fought the good fight, I HAVE finished the course, I HAVE kept the faith.” The fact is, Paul knew that there was not any hope for deliverance or escape this time. He had a certainty that his impending death was God’s will now, and he accepted that.

There is a time for such acceptance of God’s will. We tend to want to “hang on to any hope” or “have faith” – but we also need to realize that genuine faith must be based on God’s word. You can’t just decide to “have faith” in something that God has not indicated is going to happen – or especially if He has indicated that the OPPOSITE is going to happen. It would not have done Paul any good to “have faith” that he was going to be delivered this time – because he wasn’t going to be. It was God’s will for him to depart the world at that time, and Paul accepted that. We need to realize that there are times for us to do the same thing. There are times when being a person of “faith” does NOT mean that we hold on to a false hope which God has not given us, but that we instead accept by faith the difficult or unpleasant course which He has set before us to His glory.