The Fruit Of Hope

Rejoice in hope . . . (Romans 12:12)

We can live for weeks without food, for days without water, a for few minutes without air. But we cannot live for a single moment without hope. Read on and be encouraged today!

Hope is the confident expectation of God’s promise of good things to come. Scripture exhorts us, “We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, so that what you hope for may be fully realized” (Hebrews 6:11). God’s promise of these good things to come is grounded in God’s grace and the Good News that Jesus Christ lived, died, and rose from the grave to pay the penalty for our sins — all of our sins, past, present, and those still to come. And we are to rejoice in this hope, because joy is the promised fruit of our hope. The hope we have in Jesus will always bear the fruit of joy in our lives, no matter what we are facing, because in Jesus we have a Living Hope that nothing in this life can affect.

This joy we have in Jesus is not an act of willpower. Rather, it is a spontaneous, spiritual, and emotional response of the heart to the reality of our redemption in Jesus. It is the fruit of hope because it comes from the Holy Spirit; it is produced under the supernatural and special influences of the Spirit of God working both in and through us in every circumstance we face. The apostle Paul taught that one of the fruits of the Spirit of God is joy (Galatians 5:22), and this is why God commands us to rejoice, because God always gives us all we need in order to do what He commands us to do.

Remember, even when the circumstances in your life argue against all hope, hope is still there because of your relationship with Jesus Christ. The Bible tells us that Jesus endured the cross “for the joy that was set before Him” (Hebrews 12:2 ESV). Do you know what that joy was? It was you! Your name was written on His heart and breathed through His cracked lips. Let that truth strengthen you and encourage you to rejoice in hope, no matter the cost or the circumstance you encounter in this life, because greater is the power that is at work within you than any power that will ever come against you.  

This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!