Hope!

"Now the God of Hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing,
that you may abound in hope, through the Holy Spirit."
Romans 15:13
 
Today, I was telling the men in our fellowship how the Lord is able to remind us...

...of even the simplest of spiritual truths that we may have inadvertently forgotten as the days go by. I know from my own dealings with forgetfulness how easy it is to neglect and forget even the most basic things, such as having hope.
 
I told the men that hope is one of God's gifts. He is called the "God of Hope." And the hope the Lord offers is supernatural, in that it comes with "joy and peace," and is made secure by believing in God. And this kind of hope can only be achieved by having the Holy Spirit as its source of "power."
 
As followers of the Lord Jesus, we are meant to live with this supernatural hope. The Jewish prophet Joel declared, "The Lord will be the hope of His people, and the strength of the children of Israel" (Joel 3:16 KJV), thereby connecting strength and hope together.
 
And it appears that even King David had to remind himself of this truth, too. For he said, "And so, Lord, where do I put my hope? My only hope is in you" (Psalm 39:7 NLT).
 
We went on to have a good worship service on this cold Sunday afternoon. The congregation here at the prison is excited and expectant at what the Lord has planned for us in the new year. Our hope is in the Lord. And it is a holy hope at that, because it comes with peace and joy, and with the supernatural strength of the Holy Spirit. 
 
D.B.