Scripture Devotion
Not hope talked into yourself — hope filled in from its source.
“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.”
Reflection
Notice who God is called here: the God of hope. Not merely a God who gives hope occasionally, but one whose very nature is hope — the source it flows from. And the filling he does is generous: all joy and peace, with the aim that you may abound — overflow, have more than enough — in hope. The mechanism is worth catching: the joy and peace come in believing, and the abounding hope comes through the power of the Holy Ghost. It's not hope manufactured by willpower or talked into yourself; it's hope filled in from a source and powered from beyond you. As the week closes, the verse points away from squeezing out the last of your own optimism toward being filled from the God whose nature is the hope itself.