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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