DECEMBER 5
ABOUNDING IN HOPE
OLUBI JOHNSON
Romans 15:13 (KJV)
Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.
God wants us to abound in hope; why?
Hope motivates us to be diligent in our spiritual lives, purifying ourselves by the blood (Heb.13:20-21), Word (1Jn. 2:5) and Spirit (1Jn. 4:12-13) so we can experience the reality of our hope in God’s promises.
Now, there are three levels of hope we should have as Christians:
1. Hope for the promises of God in this life: healing, prosperity and physical and material blessings. For example, Abraham’s hope to give birth to a son through Sarah in their old age (Rom. 4:17-21).
2. Hope for the perfection and fullness of Christ in this lifetime (1Th. 5:23; Jn. 14:12)
3. Hope for the resurrection and the glorification of our physical bodies at the ‘rapture;’ at the physical return of the Lord Jesus at the close of this age (Matt. 24:14; 1Cor. 15:51-55)
To abound in hope, we need to:
i. Maintain an honest and humble heart (Prov. 11:2).
ii. Pray as a daily habit for the spirit of wisdom and revelation (Eph. 1:17-18).
iii. Pray frequently and fervently with tongues and all types of prayer in the Spirit (Eph. 6:18), with hearts filled with the life of God to release the revelation and power of the Holy Spirit into our hearts to abound in hope (1Cor. 14:2).
iv. Do balanced bible reading as a daily habit.
Psalms 119:49 KJV: ZAIN. Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope.
It is instructive to observe that we should always have the hope of perfection and the hope of the resurrection constantly in our hearts, so that when our hopes for physical and material things are denied or delayed, our hearts will not become sick making us miserable (Prov. 13:12)
So we are to abound in hope not only for the things of this life, but firstly and more importantly, hope for the perfection and fullness of Christ in this lifetime, and the glorification of our bodies at the resurrection, knowing that as we grow into the perfection and fullness of Christ (Eph. 4:15), we will have all other things added to us (Matt. 6:33).
For more on today’s study visit:
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