“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, NIV).
My prayer is that God would fill each of you with His unsurpassed peace! The key, according to this Scripture verse, is that you will receive the fullness of peace as you trust in Him.
As a leader, my goal is to be a person who overflows with hope. I believe we should always bring hope and peace to others—so after they spend time with us, they walk away encouraged and full of hope. This Scripture tells us how to overflow with hope.
First, trust in God. God fills you with peace as you trust in Him! Perhaps right now you are not feeling “the peace of God that surpasses all understanding” (Philippians 4:7, NET). That peace comes through trusting in God alone. A church leader recently said, “Peace is not the absence of conflict in your life; it is God’s hand over your life during times of conflict.”
Romans 15:13 tells us why God fills us with peace—so that we may overflow with hope. I challenge you to be an agent of hope. Allow God’s peace to so fill you that you can do nothing but overflow with hope. It becomes part of your nature. You see God at work in your life, and you start to see hope in everything He does.
Remember, hope is not the same as wishing. The hope we have in God is a certainty of the future. Our hope is not a wish, but something we look forward to with certainty in God. When you are an agent of hope, you provide people with peace in their present circumstances and in their future. They have hope in God through the power of the Holy Spirit.
I would guess that most people close to me see me as an eternal optimist. I always see the glass half full rather than half empty. That can be a drawback in certain situations, but as far as having hope in God, my glass is full and even overflowing. I always want to overflow with hope for others so they are encouraged and uplifted when I’m with them.
Of course, the last part of that verse is to overflow with hope “by the power of the Holy Spirit.” We must remember that the Holy Spirit gives us that power. It’s not something we can do on our own. As we trust in Him, He fills us up with His peace and we end up overflowing with hope through the Holy Spirit.
This verse is my prayer for you! May He fill you with His peace, and may you overflow with hope to those around you.