Overflow with Hope

Advent is the coming of a significant person. The season of Advent in Christian churches is a time of preparation and expectation waiting to celebrate the coming of the most significant person in history:

The coming of Jesus.

The Christmas holy day celebrates that God visited this world as a baby and grew into the man who would save the world. Christmas, the first coming of Jesus, should remind us of the second coming, the coming that is yet to come.

Advent is a time to focus on the promise of Jesus that he's coming back to complete what he started.

Because of Jesus we can have Hope. 

In Romans 5:1-5: the Apostle Paul talks about Hope and the results of it in our lives. He says, "Since we have been made right with God by our faith, we have peace with God. This happened through our Lord Jesus Christ, who through our faith has brought us into that blessing of God's grace that we now enjoy. And we are happy because of the hope we have of sharing God's glory. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope."

Paul says that through Jesus we have been made right with God and that we have peace with God. We are happy because of the hope we have of sharing in God's glory. He also says that we glory in our sufferings. We persevere because our experience of suffering causes character to be built. We have to persevere, overcome suffering, for the character of Jesus to be developed in our lives. Then, God can look at us and say “you're ready.” It’s not until then that God's purpose for our lives can be complete. In a Scriptural sense, when we talk about character we're talking about being complete, something that's only available to somebody who's in the right relationship with God through Jesus Christ. 

We're happy because of the hope we have, we glory in our sufferings, suffering works perseverance, perseverance works character, and then we come back to hope. That's the cycle of hope; Hope, Suffering, Perseverance, Character, and then back to Hope. In order for this to work in our lives, we always have to come back to hope.

“We are happy because of the hope we have of sharing

in God’s glory.”

As followers of Jesus, in spite of what we go through in life, we can always hope for more because of these promises. I invite you to fill your life with hope and cycle it back in your life, get up every day and say "I see a bright, bright future." 

“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

Adapted from The Lord Bless You (Chosen) by Terry A. Smith. All rights reserved.