Romans 15:13 – 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. ESV
Time to break it down!
“May the God of hope.”
God is the God of all things – clearly – but Paul points out the nice little reminder that God is the God of hope in particular here.
I’m not going to try to pretend like I have this all together and that I have for a long time. There was a long season in my life where having hope for more than just some recovery for my daughter with autism was just another way of getting my expectations up to potentially be knocked down and I just couldn’t muster it up. Life hit too hard too often and I was a torn-up vessel with one barely working sail in the middle of the ocean in a category 5 hurricane. The idea of hoping for something good was a far-off reality I wasn’t sure I would get to any time soon.
Maybe you feel like I did. Like nothing has been going right for quite some time and you aren’t sure if there is clear skies and calm winds in your future.
Let me tell you – you worship the God of hope. He is in charge of hope. He created hope.
Hope is that beautiful expectation of something wonderful you just can’t see yet. Toward the end of my season of suffering I began to cling to hope and God did not let me down.
Here, Paul not only makes that strong claim that we can have some hope because God is the God of hope but hope comes from a pouring out of the Holy Spirit in our lives when we believe on Him! What great news!
Not to mention the side effects of believing in God comes with a side of joy and a side of peace while we wait for our hope to be revealed!
Commentary highlights that the sustaining of this believing – this hope – is a result of the gift of God, The Holy Spirit in us.
Ultimately we do not have to will this up on our own – our close walking with Christ will have this fulfillment recognized because of The Holy Spirit! What better motivation to walk closely with God than to have our being filled with The Holy Spirit and abound in joy, peace and hope?
