Romans 15:13 (NLT)
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.
The 1994 film, “Shawshank Redemption” has become one of
the most favorite re-run movies in history.
I am not a movie critic and cannot say why it wasn’t popular initially,
but I believe that its growing popularity over the years in large part is
because of its underlying theme of hope.
The subtitle of the movie is “Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free”. Indeed, the main character, Andy Dufresne, is
seen by inmates in the movie and those who watch the movie as a person who
never gives up, who has an unquenchable sense of hope. His best quote in the movie is when he says
to his friend “Red”: “Remember, Red,
hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things and no good thing ever dies”.
Paul says in this verse that God is the source of your
hope. If you allow Him to fill you, you
will be full of joy and peace because you trust Him. Isaiah 26:3 states that God will keep the
person who trusts in Him in perfect peace.
It seems so simple, doesn’t it?
Yet, why do people everywhere search for peace of mind and heart when it
clearly states in these passages that peace comes from trusting in God because
your trust gives you hope that completely fills you with His peace. In fact, Paul proceeds to reaffirm that hope
will overflow in the person who trusts in God because of the power of the Holy
Spirit.
This is supernatural truth that until you are willing
to move from the physical to the spiritual, you will never experience true peace as a result of resting in genuine hope. For some reason(s) people,
even Christian people, tend to try to find sources of peace everywhere else
except from the source. The source is
God and we find His peace through developing faith from studying the
Scriptures, from prayer and applying our faith in everyday life, and in
meditating about God and His ways especially in ways where we can enjoy His
natural creation. That’s why mountain,
ocean, forest, desert, and other natural scenes of creation are so capable of
drawing out your inner sense of who God is.
As Paul prayed, may God, the source of hope, fill you
completely with His joy and peace. You
must believe that He can and will do this.
There’s an old Proverb that says, “He who has hope has everything” and
indeed, if you believe that God is everything that that Bible says He is and
you innately feel in your heart and soul and spirit that He is, then you will
have all His hope and you will have everything you need to live your life in
joy and peace. This is the truest and
best meaning of your life, to have the hope of God in you everyday for the rest
of your life.
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