“Abundant Hope” ( Romans 15: 13, KNOX ) by Carley Evans

(Photo credit: radiant guy)

The author of your hope – if you are a Christian – is God. He fills you with joy and peace “in your believing.” He desires for you to “hope in abundance.” You must recognize your hope comes “through the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Perhaps you try to generate this joy and peace and hope through sheer will-power. Stop trying so hard. Jesus says, “I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” He says, “I have come that you may have life, and that abundantly.” He promises, “I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again. If it were not so, I would have told you.”

Therefore, Paul prays:

May God, the author of our hope, fill you with all joy and peace in your believing; so that you may have hope in abundance, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

“By God’s Own Act” (Galatians 3: 28, NEB) by Carley Evans

“You all put on Christ as a garment,” writes Paul. “There is no such thing as Jew and Greek, slave and freeman, male and female; for you are all one person in Christ Jesus. But if you thus belong to Christ, you are the ‘issue’ of Abraham, and so heirs by promise.” (Galatians 3: 27 – 29)

We become God’s ‘sons’ by putting “on Christ as a garment.” “To prove that [we] are sons, God sends into our hearts the Spirit of His Son, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ [We] are therefore no longer slaves but sons, and if sons, then also by God’s own act heirs.” (Galatians 4: 6 – 7)

Christ purchases our freedom with His own blood. Through the shedding of His blood, Jesus frees us from subjection to the law so that “we might attain the status of sons.” (Galatians 4: 5) And this is God’s gift to us; a gift He manufactures without our assistance; a gift He freely gives us so that we might have eternal life with Him. And not only that, but that we might have abundant life here and now. Life is not only for some remote future; it is here and now. Jesus tells the woman caught in adultery, “Go and sin no more.” Jesus tells a man on the Sabbath to stretch out his “withered arm” so that He might heal him. Jesus refuses to send away the five thousand and four thousand men (not to mention women and children) but feeds them all beyond their imagining. He gives abundant life, now and in eternity.

“Every Word God Utters” (Matthew 4: 4, NEB) by Carley Evans

Jesus tells us that people are incapable of living only on bread, i.e. foodstuff. Instead, people need “every Word that God utters” in order to live life, and live it abundantly.

Paul writes to Timothy, “Keep before you an outline of the sound teaching which you heard from me, living by faith and love which are ours in Christ Jesus.” (2 Timothy 1: 13) And further Paul tells Timothy that “every inspired scripture has its use for teaching the truth and refuting error, or for reformation of manners and discipline in right living, so that the man who belongs to God may be efficient and equipped for good work of every kind.” (2 Timothy 3: 16 – 17) Paul tells the Thessalonian church, “Do not stifle inspiration, and do not despise prophetic utterances, but bring them all to the test and then keep what is good in them and avoid the bad of whatever kind.” (1 Thessalonians 5: 19 – 22)

God’s Word is the creative force behind every being and every event. God’s Word is the weapon against temptation and its offspring, sin. God’s Word is the draw, pulling a person towards redemption, healing, sanctification.

People can not live on only food; people must own the Word — every Word God utters.