Advent Devotional: Day 22

May the God of Hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Romans 15:13 ESV

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

We defined confident Hope in the first introduction (“Biblical Hope is a confident expectation and joyful certainty in God’s promises, grounded in His character and redemptive acts. It is a future-oriented hope that is sustained by faith in the present and has a foundation in the past. Biblical Hope provides strength, endurance, and comfort, and it motivates believers to live holy lives as they anticipate future fulfillment and Christ’s return.”  Google AI definition) and here we see it should overflow.

What if we prayed this verse whenever we felt the world closing in on us? Paul shows us the way to pray for fellow believers, you know the ones who are struggling like you.  The ones whom you disagree with or that irritate you. The very ones who have hurt you. All these things are joy killers if we allow them. Our joy comes from trusting in God who is the source of our hope and peace.

Take a moment to write down what is trying to steal or kill your joy. By writing it down, we are removing it from our thoughts. The next step is to pray this verse. If it is a person who has created the joy killer, this verse will bless them. (Pray it like this “Crystal [name of your person, not your name] 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.—Amen). Then your next step is to forgive like Jesus on the cross.

May the God of Hope, Peace and Love fill you with great Joy that can only come from Him.