God’s intention for you and me is to be people of great joy.
Overflowing joy.
Abundant joy.
Flooding joy.
Inundated with joy.
Surplus joy.
Plentiful joy.
Abounding joy.
In my post Joy Unspeakable, I explained that joy is the emotion derived from hope. If that's true, then where does hope come from?
One of the best parts of being a Christian is that there is no shortage of hope when you trust in God. It never runs out. It is never used up. There is always more than enough. Why? Because God wants this hope that we have to be filling us up to overflowing so that it pours out of our lives to affect others. The hope that we have in Jesus, should be contagious!
Christian hope is not merely "wishful thinking". God knows the end from the beginning, and His confident expectation of the success of the gospel (which He has already seen) is called "HOPE".
He is the God of HOPE. When all others would have seen no other option but to destroy the world because of sin, the God of all Hope saw another way! By nature He is Hopeful. And as such, He is able to pour His hope into our lives - all the hope we will ever need, to the point of overflow. He is our resource in times should our hope begin to wane.
Have you ever been around a person who is overflowing with hope? Who can see the possibilities in an unseeingly impossible situation? A person who is overflowing with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit is also full of joy and peace. Those are the kinds of things that accompany hope. It’s amazing what a person full of hope can accomplish.
Hope is not seen. Faith is a substance, a tangible reality. Faith is activated by hope and they work together. To have hope, you must have faith. Hope is a "companion" to faith - they are very closely linked. Hope is never inferior to faith, but is the groundwork of faith. Hebrews 11:1 tells us that “Faith is the substance (the stuff) of things hoped for...”
Have you ever felt like your life wasn’t counting for much? At times I get discouraged and wonder if I’m really doing much good. I’m sure some of you have struggled with similar feelings. We don’t always know what God is accomplishing, except we do know that He promises to work all things together for our good (Romans 8:28). It’s not for us to figure it all out. Our part is to faithfully do what God tells us to do, and overflow in HOPE.