I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13 NLT
Understanding biblical hope can be challenging for us, because in our common English language we generally think of hope as something that carries a tinge of doubt and anxiety that what we want will truly happen. Yes, there is anticipation, but anticipation that is more wishing than certainty.
But that is not true of the biblical language of hope. The word “hope” in the New Testament
comes from the Greek word “elpis.” Strong’s Concordance says that elpis means expectation, trust, and confidence. The root word of elpis is “elpo,” and it means to welcome and anticipate with pleasure. Elpis, hope, is an expectation of what is guaranteed. Therefore, every place in the New Testament where you see the word “hope” you can substitute “confident expectation.”
It will read like this: “I pray that God, the source of confident expectation, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident expectation through the power of the Holy Spirit.”
It’s a process that is bound to happen when we do our part.
God is the Guarantor, the Source of all hope and confident expectation. This is not something I have to work up on my own, a sort of “I wish I may, I wish I might have the wish I wish tonight” mantra chanting. It is about being connected to the Source. The faucet in my kitchen is connected to the water tank. The faucet has no water on its own, but as long as it is connected to the water tank, there is a continuous supply. My job is to stay connected to the source.
When I place my full trust and faith in God, He will fill me up with joy and peace. My circumstances will not dictate my level of joy and peace. Those realities will come from my solid relationship and connection to God, my source.
That will then automatically result in my experience of confident hope. Hope is a person, the person of Jesus, and His presence will fill every corner of my life.
I believe that something good is about to happen, because Someone Good, Hope Himself, is forever with us. I look to the future with overflowing confident expectation, and I live in joy and peace.
- Fill in the blank: Because of Jesus, I have the confident expectation that __________________________________________________________________________________