THE POWER OF ABOUNDING HOPE

“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

We’ll round off the month with hearts of Gratitude holding on to the POWER of ABOUNDING HOPE: “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). Hope is the feeling and confidence that what is wanted or desired will happen. Hope is what drives us as people. It is what makes efforts and life’s journey justifiable and tolerable. Hope also gives us joy and anticipation for what is to come. We need hope to receive motivation and inspiration. That is why hopelessness is so scary and debilitating.

Hope is also linked to who or what we place our confidence in. It makes sense that we place our confidence in the biggest, most certain, and most powerful source. As believers, our hope is always in God. He actually wants us to place our Hope in Him. Prayer is a clear indication of that. God wants to give us hope. The Word describes our Lord as the “GOD of HOPE.”  His HOPE fills us with JOY and PEACE, being well-positioned and secure. Moreover, God doesn’t just want to give us enough hope to get by; rather, He wants to pour so much grace, love, and peace on us that we abound and overflow with Hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. God wants us to experience ABOUNDING and OVERFLOWING HOPE!     

Hope is confident expectation in Jesus. Hope defeats despair and claims victory through Jesus Christ. Faith is the Victory that overcomes the world (1Jh.5:4). Hope is the hand that tenaciously holds on to the Victory! In the Bible as it is in contemporary times, people of Faith walk in Hope, being assured that God’s will and ways would ultimately prevail. Knowing this empowers us to place our concerns, anxieties, and fears in God’s hands and walk forward confidently even though our present situation may be less than desirable. Even before our ultimate vindication, we learn to walk in the victory of faith.

Our souls need Hope the way our lungs need oxygen. We are often surrounded by situations of insecurity and tumult: at societal, family, and personal levels. As God’s people, with incredible, unmovable assurance, we already know the outcome. The gift of that assurance frees us to have Hope when nobody else does and points our eyes and ultimately our hearts to the One who makes Hope possible in the face of despair. We can walk in victory even in the most challenging times.

God, in Christ, has extended Hope to His children – a hope so powerful that it can both calm our fears and move us to give thanks. That hope is built on the truth that even though we were powerless and sinful, Christ died for us (Rom.5:8). There, in a garden tomb, lay the Hope of the entire world, but not for long. On the third day, He rose from the dead. So our Hope is forged out of death’s destruction; out of Christ’s victory over the grave. He won the Victory over death and hell. There’s no greater hope in this world. The Source of our Hope is the Power of God which raised Christ from the dead, “far above all principality and power and might and dominion” (Eph.1:21).

God is not just the Giver of Hope, but He is our Hope:  God of Hope; GOD is HOPE! Real hope is not just what He can give us; rather, it is God Himself. That we can know Him and He knows us is Hope enough! We have a Hope that rises above life’s brokenness. The darkness and uncertainties in the world around us do not get the final word. God does. And He reaches out with life-renewing love to us, so that we can live each day with Hope, giving thanks for Christ, our Saviour!