“Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 15:13, NKJV).
We recently chewed on this verse together. It’s so important that Holy Spirit is highlighting it again today for us. Hope is one of the most important parts of Christian living (1 Cor. 13:13). The God of hope deeply desires to cause His hope to abound in our lives. He doesn’t want to just give us occasional drops of hope to get us by, but for hope to overflow in our spirits; to be a fountain within us that never runs dry (Is. 58:11).
How do “all joy and peace” and “abounding hope” come into our lives? What a beautiful, simple way we discover in this Scripture: “in believing.” Believing! Again, when someone promises us something, how do we decide whether or not we believe them? That decision is going to be based on our assessment of their character. If they have shown themselves to be trustworthy and reliable, we immediately believe their word.
What is your observation of God’s character? Has He been trustworthy in your life? Has He been reliable? My own heart shouts an exuberant “YES!” to these questions. So then, taking Him at His word is meant to be simply about knowing His character. When you really come to know how good He is, believing Him spontaneously results.
As Jesus beautifully expressed, “This is the only work God wants from you: Believe in the one he has sent” (John 6:29, NLT). The point here is that believing God was never meant to be a strenuous thing where you grunt and pull hard at your bootstraps. It’s meant to be as easy as trusting your best friend.
Knowing His character is knowing Him. Knowing Him is eternal life. And from there flows a river of peace and hope, springing up from the “fountain of salvation” (Is. 12:3, NLT).
Do you need to know Him better, that all of this may grow and increase in your daily living? I know I do! Just this morning I was praying this over myself: “And may you be able to feel and understand, as all God’s children should, how long, how wide, how deep, and how high his love really is; and to experience this love for yourselves, though it is so great that you will never see the end of it” (Eph. 3:18-19, TLB).
The NIV renders it, “That you may have power to grasp…” This power is available to you and me, dear one. It’s ours. It is “us-ward” as Ephesians 1:19 puts it. “Never doubt God’s mighty power to work in you and accomplish all this. He will achieve infinitely more than your greatest request, your most unbelievable dream, and exceed your wildest imagination! He will outdo them all, for his miraculous power constantly energizes you” (Eph. 3:20, TPT).
Right now, I am praying that you and I would have power to grasp how immense the Father’s love for us is… and that in childlike trust in Him, joy, peace, and hope would overflow our souls!
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If these three remain, faith, hope, and love, why do we hear a whole lot of teachings on faith and love, but not so many about hope?
Feeding On Jesus 
Thank you so much for sharing it!
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