A New Dose Of Hope: Second Helping

Posted on September 7, 2018 by America's Keswick in Freedom Fighters

“I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.” — Romans 15:13 (NLT)

When I was with you last I was covering the need for a new dose of hope. Today I would like to repeat something that I said the last time and that was, “The God of hope wants us to be filled with all joy and peace in believing, so that we will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” I shared this with some folks during morning devotions at Americas Keswick while I was there over the Labor Day weekend. I broke it down into a lot of different Scriptural parts but basically its just four things we need to understand when we look at the source of this abundant hope; the foundation for it; the human and divine means for abounding in it; and, some practical strategies for growing in God’s joy, peace, and hope.

The first thing to grasp onto is that the source of this abundant hope is THE God of hope. There is so much in Scripture that covers this, but the one thing to remember is that Biblical hope is not uncertain, like saying ‘I hope it is gonna be sunny tomorrow because I wanna go fishin’…au contraire… Biblical hope is a certain because it rests on God’s promises, its just that we haven’t experienced the fulfillment yet. And let me say this, Unless you have Christ as your hope, and I mean beyond this life only, you don’t have any true hope beyond the grave. Have that eternal hope mindset.

A second thing to understand is that the foundation for this abundant hope is to be filled with all joy and peace. In Romans 15:33 Paul closes his statement by saying, “Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.” When I think of an example of the God of peace I need to go no further than Jesus Himself. In Galatians, Paul states clearly that walking in the Spirit will assure the fruits of joy and peace because, “those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:24). Once we’re at this point we should be filling our jugs with that cool spring water that gives us peace and joy.

A third thing to I think is an absolute is our human means of this abundant hope to keep believing in God and His word. There were other folks who had been surrounded by messed up circumstances. Even though Jeremiah watched as Nebuchadnezzar’s army plowed through and destroyed Jerusalem, He kept his thoughts towards God and penned this, “This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope. Through the LORD’S mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. ‘The LORD is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘Therefore I hope in Him!'” (Lamentations 3:21-24). This is a just a hint of what you’ll find in God’s Word in regards to hope.

Lastly the divine means of this abundant hope is the power of the Holy Spirit. Plain and simple the power of the Holy Spirit is nothing less than the power of God that created the universe!! It is also the resurrection power that Jesus explains when He talks about giving new life to dead sinners, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:6-8). And with this Spirit you’ll see the production of His fruits of joy and peace.

If you wanna get on track to getting that new dose of hope why not get back into the groove of spending time in Gods presence? Read His word, mediate on it, pray on it. Memorize some of those tried and true promises we can only find in Gods Word. Confess grumbling and complaining as sin and deliberately think each day of things that you can thank God for. When it gets overwhelming with the pressure of this world’s culture tell yourself to hope in God. Don’t go on without understanding your need to be plugged in to the source of hope. To repeat this verse, “If we have hoped in Christ in this Life only, we are of all men most pitied.” (1 Cor 15:19) Pity is no way to glorify God so let’s live a life of hope. Amen?

Written by Chris Hughes: Chris, a graduate of The Colony of Mercy (11-2003) has been married for 25+ years (Kathy), has a married son (Kevin) and a daughter in college (Karen). He has been a Freedom Fighter contributor since 2008.

The Daily Bible Reading: Ezekiel 35-37| You can download our 2018 Daily Bible Reading Plan by clicking here

Daily Quote: “What gives me the most hope every day is God’s grace; knowing that his grace is going to give me the strength for whatever I face, knowing that nothing is a surprise to God.” — Rick Warren

This Week’s Verse to Memorize: Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him. Proverbs 26:12