Romans 15:13 “ May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” This episode talks about how we know we are trusting in the Lord when we are filled with joy and peace. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The God of Hope
Romans 15:13 “ May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
The God of hope, what a great way to refer to the Lord. He is the God of hope. All hope can be found in Him. I like the thought of God filling me with joy and peace as I trust in Him, don’t you? I feel as though that would be reassurance that we were doing the right thing. Actually now that I just said that I can see how this is the case. When we are trusting in the Lord, we are filled with peace and joy. Can you think of a time when you had a decision to make and you felt completely at peace with it? Can you think of a time when you were so happy and filled with complete joy? Think about these circumstances. Can you see how you were trusting the Lord in them?
The second half of 2020 and the first half of 2021 were really tough on our family. Actually they were tough on most families as we were in the middle of a pandemic, and we were stuck in our houses for a lot of it. It was not an easy time for anyone. However, on top of all of this we had a lot of other things going on that made it even more difficult. Probably some of the hardest parenting issues we will ever have to face, and we have faced a lot of parenting issues. Although it was a really difficult time, I was filled with joy and peace for much of that difficult time because I was trusting that the Lord knew what was best. We were encountering situation after situation that we had never encountered before. We didn’t know what to do or how to handle most of it. What do you do when you are in a situation and you don’t know what to do? You turn to the Lord. I spent a lot of time in prayer. I asked the Lord at every turn which way He wanted me to go. I relied on Him to get us through it. I am not saying this to boast at how great I am for turning to the Lord. I turned to Him because I did not know what else to do. This is usually why we turn to the Lord. When we have tried all we can think of on our own and nothing worked.
However, I would love to change this. I would love to turn to God first in every circumstance, not just when I feel stuck and don’t know what to do. This is what the Lord wants too. He is always there for us and He is happy when we turn to Him in times of trouble. However, I am sure He would also love it if we turned to Him in our every day decision making. Or, what about when you do know what you want to do? What about stopping to ask God what He thinks about you taking that job you want or buying that car you want. You may already know what you want to do, but what if we stopped to run it by the Lord and see if He thinks it’s a good idea? Sometimes our decisions can be clouded by superficial things or we have the wrong motivation driving our decision making and we don’t realize it until it is too late. Invite the Lord into all your decisions. Wouldn’t it be great to feel that peace and joy of trusting the Lord all the time?
This verse ends with, “so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” I don’t know anyone that would turn down the chance to be overflowing with hope. This verse also tells us where hope come from, the power of the Holy Spirit. If we want to have more hope, we just have to ask for it. Jesus tells His disciples in John 16:23-24 “ On that day you will ask nothing of me. Very truly, I tell you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.” If we want to have more hope in our lives all we need to do is ask the Lord for it and we will receive it by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask that you bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord we ask that you fill us all with joy and peace as we trust in you. We all want to overflow with hope, please show us how. Please fill us with the power of the Holy Spirit. Please help those that have given up on hope, or have forgotten how to hope. We love you Lord, you are so amazing. You give us so much to hope for. We are so grateful for all you do for us. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you again tomorrow. Have a blessed day!