“The God of Hope”

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

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. (Romans 15:13)

Hope is a confident expectation of the future.  It should include both what we desire and what we anticipate.  I've often said if we could bottle it up and sell it we would be rich, for men and women of every nation long for it.

God is the true and only source of hope.  Paul begins this prayer by calling on the God of hope. Any real and worthy of hope is fixed on God and centered in God. Paul prays that these saints might overflow with the hope which God supplies.

If one's hope is fixed on human schemes they will be sorely disappointed, but if hope is in God it has a solid foundation. This hope is an “anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast” (Hebrews 6:19). It is founded on God's unchanging counsel. It is a living hope that thrives on a resurrected Savior, and bolstered by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Actually the thread of this verse reaches back to the thought revealed in verse 12. The “root of Jesse”, the Lord Jesus Christ, was to be a common source of hope for both Jews and Gentiles. Paul prays this common hope would motivate the Jews and Gentiles to accept and love one another in Christ. Therefore receive one another, just as Christ also received us, to the glory of God (Romans 15:7). God’s plan of redemption was designed to reconcile these two different peoples to God and to one another.

If God's people would allow Him to fill them with the joy and peace of Christ, perhaps the short tempers and harsh words that bring strife and contention would dissolve. Then we could focus all of our energies and our passions on the common acceptance that we enjoy through the God of hope.

By George Slover

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