Yearly Cycle: The God of Hope

Christmas is celebrating the day light came into the world. It is a reminder to wake up every day like a kid on Christmas morning, with joy and expectation. When Jesus was born the main message of the angels was peace and joy. 

Peace and joy are very powerful individually but when combined they are truly amazing. Peace and joy combined together leads to miracles. 

Last week we talked about peace being our indicator that we truly believe. Whenever we are in true faith there is always a sense of peace that comes along. Peace therefore, is our indicator that we are in faith and single minded in our beliefs. 

Joy is our indicator that we are focused on God's presence with us during the day. In God's presence there is fullness of joy. When we are present we are not stuck in the past or worried about an uncertain future. God is in the present moment, so as we get more present we connect with him and it leads to fullness of joy. When we have peace and joy together we have created the environment that leads to miracles.  

However, in the present moment we may not have the result of what we are believing for just yet. Sometimes we must wait a little while, which leads us to hope. 

For a while I have been praying from Ephesians 1 which says  " I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you." 

Through praying this every day God began to teach me more about hope. 

Romans 15:13 ESV says "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.

The NLT version says  "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."

Peace and joy create the environment for miracles and hope creates confident expectation while we wait for the results. Hope is the feeling that comes from trusting. When peace, joy, and trust are combined together the result is confident hope, overflowing hope, abounding hope. What is hope? Hope in the Amplified Bible is defined as the confident expectation of good. 

This is not confidence in ourselves, but in God, who is the source of hope.  

It starts with believing and then we are filled with joy and peace as we believe. Even when we don't have the answer yet we keep trusting which causes us to abound with confident hope. Hope that overflows with expectation like a kid on Christmas morning. 

In Psalm 139:16 David says of God "in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me." This is an amazing scripture. God has a book that he wrote about us before we were ever born, and in that book God has already written what life is supposed to be like each day. He not only has a plan for your life... he has a plan for each individual day. God already wrote about this day...today and it is better than anything we could think to ask for. 

God gives us freewill to live out his beautiful plan for our lives each day. Recently, we have talked about writing what you want each day, and I am learning that one of the most powerful things to write or ask for is for God to give you the day he already wrote for you. 

I like to do this before going to bed at night and then wake up like a kid on Christmas morning full of hope...the confident expectation of good, because this is the day that the Lord has made. Here is how I think we can receive the day that God has prepared for us today.

1) Pay attention to peace and joy. If anything tries to knock you out of peace and joy, adjust and get back to peace, joy, and the expectation of good as quickly as possible. It is very easy for something small to derail your entire day. It could be that someone says something to you or something else unexpected tries to interrupt your day. Let it go and don't let it ruin your whole day. Get your mind back onto God as quickly as possible. 

2) Do good. How do you walk out God's plan for your day? Do the good things you know you should do. It is never too soon to do what you know is right. Take action on anything you know you should be doing and then as opportunities you weren't anticipating arise choose to do good with every opportunity God sends your way. The day is not going to go the way you expect, because it will hopefully be better than you could have imagined. 

Merry Christmas!

Daniel