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.

I had the opportunity to talk to a brother in Christ this past week who is receiving these devotionals. He shared with me how excited he is to have a new revelation from God regarding how to spend time with him and get to know him.

In the past, he felt pressure to perform in Christian circles by reading through the Bible in a year. But this approach did not seem to work for him for a number of reasons. So he started to slow down, focus on smaller chunks at a time, and reflect on the deeper meaning behind each section. And to his great joy, he found that the Bible began to come alive to him. He began to have a deeper understanding of how it could be implemented in his daily life.

As we spoke, I shared with him my process for refocusing my mind on Jesus and God in the morning. Many times, I wake up stressed, frustrated, angry, worried, or burnt out to start my day. As I look at the scripture I am to study and write about, quite frequently I come up initially blank — I have nothing to go on.

But amazingly after 20-30 minutes in prayer, sometimes longer, focusing on each section of the Lord’s Prayer and some other visuals, when I open my eyes and reread the passage, I get insight into something important, a take-away to write about. This is clearly the work of the Holy Spirit living inside me. He is powerful and delivers deep insight into the mind and heart of God. But only if I daily go through the process of renewing my mind on him. And it is this incredible power on display in our daily lives (if we so choose to embrace God’s Spirit within us) that gives us an overflowing hope! And we can be full of joy and peace in any and every circumstance because God is the God of hope and he never ever lets us down.

We belong to him and his kingdom and the victory in life is already in hand, for us as his sold-out followers. So I take this verse and claim it today and tomorrow and every day. It is food for my thirsty soul.

Lord, I thank you for your joy and hope that is only accessed through your Holy Spirit. We can dwell with you every day and have our worried minds transformed by your power and your love. I choose to live in your Spirit today!