Scripture of the Day
"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." -- Romans 15:13
Reflection
Paul's great chain in Romans 5 -- justification, peace, grace, endurance, character, hope -- does not end with the individual. It ends with a hope that is meant to overflow. God's love is poured into us so that it might pour out of us. The gospel transforms us personally so that, through us, it might touch the world.
Ronald Pinkerton, the hang glider who once found himself out of control and plummeting toward the earth, felt an instinct to follow a hawk that was also rapidly descending. It made no sense -- the hawk seemed to be falling to its death -- but then the bird began to level out and lift. Pinkerton also found himself rising on a warm surge of air he couldn't explain.
"Nothing I knew as a pilot could explain what was happening," he wrote. "But it was true: I was rising."
This is gospel hope. It is not the hope that comes when circumstances improve. It is the hope that rises when circumstances offer nothing. It is a hope born not from what we can see but from who holds us -- the God who justified us, who pours his love into our hearts, who is remaking the world through people who have been remade by his grace.
Our world desperately needs that hope. Your family needs it. Your neighborhood needs it. And you have it -- poured into you by the Spirit of the living God.
Go and overflow.
Question for Personal Reflection
Who in your life most needs to encounter the gospel hope you carry? How might you bring it to them?
Action Step
Write a prayer for one person who needs hope -- and then reach out to them today.
Prayer
Lord, fill us to overflowing. Let the hope we have received in the gospel become a hope we pour into every life we touch. Amen.
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