I hope it doesn’t rain, I hope there’s not a test today, do you ever catch yourself saying things like that? But what are we actually saying, what is hope?

In Romans 15:13, the apostle Paul says to the Christians in Rome “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.”

Hope is meant to be a part of your life as a follower of Jesus. That you would not only “feel” it, but that you would be filled with it and overflow with it. Hope is more than a feeling, its more than wishful thinking.

And the best way that I can describe hope to you is with what David said in Psalm 27 “I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” In other words, Hope, is the confident expectation of the goodness of God.

Hope is being confident that God is good and good to you, no matter the circumstance or situation; because hope isn’t based on what we’re facing, it’s based on the character of who Jesus is.

Something that is crazy about hope, is that you will actually be filled with hope the more you over overflow with hope, the more you give it away.

No seriously, think about it. When you are at a deficit of something, like, if you don’t have enough time or money, the natural response is to keep it all for yourself so that you don’t lose any of it, right?

So, if you ever feel low on hope, like when you struggle to see how God is good in the midst of your circumstances, the best thing that you can do is to give hope away!

I heard a story about someone who has living with diabetes. And for years he had been wrestling with Jesus over his diagnosis. But recently, he was able to pray for another guy who had recently been diagnosed with diabetes. Crazy right? Here you have a guy who had lost hope in his diagnoses, but God presents him an opportunity to give hope away as he prayed over someone. And as he did, as he declared the goodness of God over the other person, he himself got filled with hope.

There is also a college student who had been running away from God and one day he came to church with his girlfriend and an older woman sitting next to him asked him to pray for her son.

You see, the woman’s son was about the same age and was running away from God. This college student nevertheless prayed that this woman’s son would come back to the Lord, and it filled his own heart with hope, and moved his heart towards God.

In Col 1:27 it says, Living within you is the Christ who floods you with the expectation of glory! This mystery of Christ, embedded within us, becomes a heavenly treasure chest of hope filled with the riches of glory for his people, and God wants everyone to know it!

The hope that God has given you, when you put your faith in Jesus, was not meant to stay on the inside of you. Stagnant hope isn’t hope at all.

Hope is meant to be shared, to cascade, to flow, to move from one person to the next. Like a game of hot potato where the second you toss it to someone else, it is tossed right back to you. But how do we do that?

You can share hope with others by praying for them, by talking about Jesus to them, encouraging them, serving them, inviting them to church or to read the Bible with you.

Essentially, you be Jesus on display for them. Love them the way Jesus has loved you, forgive them the way Jesus has forgiven you, and as you see hope come alive in someone else’s life, hope will be rekindled in your heart as well.