This Is Hope

“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.”

Romans 15:13

The God of hope in Romans 15 desires to fill your heart today with his forward-looking, bright-spirited hope. But how do you attain to such hope when your finances go south, or the surgical site gets infected, or you discover you have macular degeneration? To be hopeful in such circumstances seems totally opposite to your nature.

But remember, God’s got a higher purpose, and Charles Spurgeon describes it well; he says: “It is a mark of great grace to be able to [comply] in tribulation; [to be able to] welcome it and say, ‘The Lord is about to elevate me to the upper class in his school – to teach me some deeper truths that I have [not yet] learned, to give me a closer acquaintance with some mystery of his kingdom than I previously had, and to work in my heart some new grace which has never been there before!’” Yes, that is hope!