Abounding in Hope

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” Romans 15:13

When you believe strongly in something you have confidence in it.  You are not easily swayed.  You build your life around it. It makes me think of Linus, from the Peanuts cartoon, and his strong belief in the Great Pumpkin. He was so confident that the Great Pumpkin would appear that he gave up parties, trick-or-treating, and endured a lot of ridicule from his friends as he spent a long, lonely, cold, night in the pumpkin patch.  Unfortunately for Linus, he put his trust and confidence in something that was not real, but that is not the same for us.

2 Corinthians 3:4-5 says, “Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God,” God is sufficient and we can believe Him to be who He says he is for God is not only the object of our hope but He is also the author.  In Strong’s Greek concordance, the Greek word for hope is elpis which means, expectation, trust, and confidence. The product of that belief in God as our hope is joy and peace.  This is not the type of peace and joy that is determined by our circumstances, but is filling, satisfying, and ever-lasting.  As the Holy Spirit directs our gaze to the perfect One the result is not just a little bit of hope, joy, and peace, but an abundance of it!

Ask the Holy Spirit to shift your focus from the circumstances around you to the One who gives you hope that is satisfying and abundant.

Abounding in hope with you today,

Lisa