One aspect of my walk with Jesus that I especially am fond of involves word exploration in scripture. He will draw my attention to His intentional use of words. This may be in word order, or words associated together, or the consistent application of a word or words across multiple passages.
Recently, He reminded me of Romans 15:13: “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
I love that He describes Himself as “the God of hope.” And that because He is the God of hope, we may be filled with joy and peace. It is interesting to me that these two words are coupled together – not only in this verse – but in several places in scripture.
Isaiah 55:10-11 is one of my favorite passages of scripture. In the next verse, it says, “You will indeed go out with joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.” (bold added for emphasis)
Romans 14:17 says, “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (bold added for emphasis)
Proverbs 12:20: “Deceit is in the hearts of those who devise evil, but the counselors of peace have joy.” (bold added for emphasis)
The first portion of Galatians 5:22 says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, . .”
Looking once again at Romans 15:13 – “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe in Him, . .” we find an important caveat – “as you believe in Him.” This is our part in relationship with Jesus. What He requires of us.
Belief in Him.
In John 6, it is recorded that Jesus fed the 5,000. The next day, the crowds went to Capernaum looking for Him. In verse 26 Jesus responds to the crowd “it is not because you saw these signs that you are looking for Me, but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that perishes, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. . .”
The crowd in turn responded “What must we do to perform the works of God?”
Jesus’ response to them in verse 29 is another impactful life verse for me: “The work of God is this: to believe in the One He has sent.”
Of all the possible responses Jesus could have offered in that moment, He chose to say believe in the One God has sent.
As we believe in Him, the God of hope will fill us with all joy and peace. The two most important questions you can answer for yourself are 1) What do you believe about God? 2) What do you believe about yourself in the light of what you believe about Who God is?
