Power To Hope
Romans 15v13 (ESV)
“..so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”
Romans 5v3-4
“Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
We are looking at different ways in which God works powerfully in our individual lives and, today, at his power enabling us to abound in hope.
Hope is an important New Testament attribute but can be a little neglected, compared with love and faith. Interestingly, Romans 5 makes a clear connection between suffering and endurance (both developed in us by God’s power) and hope - describing a character-developing progression. We can understand that suffering, endurance and character follow on from each other but how but how does that lead on to hope? Don’t we need the hope a bit earlier in the process to help us to endure?
Well, it is perhaps by going through experiences that are beyond our own resources to manage, that we learn to experience God’s enabling and that we develop (or receive) the hope that helps us get through. So the experiences develop hope in us and then the hope helps us bear the experiences in a sort of circular development cycle. If God is enabling us in the here and now and is changing us to be more like him, his promises that he will look after our longer-term future can be relied on.
The New Testament church had to undergo persecution and many of them were put to death. So a very real expectation of a new spiritual body and a home with Jesus for eternity enabled them to put their present discomfort and fear into perspective. Our text tells us that it is by God’s power that we can overflow with hope and hope is something God graciously produces in us, not something we work up or create.
Let’s be encouraged to make 'receiving hope' a priority and to seek God’s power in life’s practical living and challenges so that we can abound in hope by the Holy Spirit.
Prayer — Lord, enable me to grow in hope, by your Spirit, as I work through life’s experiences and to develop endurance and character. Thank you that you take the struggles I face and use them to change me and teach me to depend on you. I trust myself into your care and the future you have planned for me.