Listen as your Father directs you in Romans 12:12. "Be joyful in hope."
Hope is a promise of God, a position in him, and a command. Check the devotional archives on the website if you missed the first two devotionals in this series.
The Greek word translated hope means desiring good and confidently expecting to obtain it. Hope that is seen is not hope.
Your assurance is in your Father that he is Lord of everything, even your challenges, opposition, and suffering. He knows the mysteries of your life, he knows what he's doing, and he has a purpose for everything. Therefore, you can rest in him. Sometimes he stands as your only hope, but even so, be blessed with joyful hope and encouragement that he is holding your future.
The psalmist gives words of command to his soul. "My soul, wait silently for God alone, for my expectation is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation; He is my defense; I shall not be moved. In God is my salvation and my glory; The rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God. Trust in Him at all times, you people; Pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us" (Ps 62:5-8).
God commands hope in him, and what he commands, he provides for. Paul said, "Continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel" (Col 1:23). In your circumstances that you can see, hope may fail you. That is the reason God gave you his Word and his promises. "Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope" (Rom 15:4). Immerse yourself in his Word, like Hebrews 6:18-19. "By two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure." Be blessed as you take hold of God's character, his unchangableness, and his promises with confidence. Be blessed with being sure that your Father cannot and will not lie to you, and he will never change his mind about you. Be blessed as you run to his firm hope as your strong and trustworthy anchor. Be blessed with continued faith in his goodness and with his great encouragement. In him you have the resources of the ages to press through walls of disappointment, self-protection, separation, and pain.
Be blessed with hope as God washes away disappointments with new vision and renewed God-directed "appointments" and expectation. God has appointed this season of refreshing and receiving for you. Receive his touch to restore the places that have been bruised, and broken, and shut down. Be blessed as you allow your Father to replace your burdens with his faith, your disappointments with his hope, and your doubts with his love.
Be blessed with the full purposes of God in re-forming and rebuilding you, which he planned before time to be released to you now. Be blessed to be saturated with renewed and restored life, so that hope deferred can no longer make you sick and hold you captive. Be blessed with all joy and peace in believing that God is doing this work by his Holy Spirit in you filling you with hope (Rom 15:13). Live in light that streams from the face of the God of hope. Be blessed as the light of his countenance shines the hope in him that does not disappoint. Receive the nurture, ministry, and full and abundant gifts of the God of hope.
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