THINK TOGETHER
What is something you are hoping will happen this new school year?
READ TOGETHER
At the end of his letter to the romans Paul wraps it up with a prayer for the Christians in Rome, a prayer that summarizes what it means to be a Christian. Listen to his prayer:
Romans 15:13. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
To be a Christian is to abound in hope. Do you know what hope is?
We use the word hope to mean something we wish will happen but we aren’t sure if it actually will. Like “I hope my team wins their baseball game today. Or I hope we don’t get a lot of homework over the weekend.”
But in the Bible the word hope means something that you are very, very sure of. Like, “I am hopeful for Jesus to return to rescue us. Or I am hoping in God’s love for me.” Those aren’t just wishes that may or may not happen. They are things that we can be sure of.
How can we be so sure that God will always love us and that Jesus will rescue us and take us to Heaven? Because we have the Holy Spirit living inside of us as the proof of God’s promise to save us.
And so now all this hope that we have, this assurance, can make us “joyful,” and “peaceful” in our daily lives. When you know that something will happen then looking forward to it can make you happy and even less stressed out. We don’t have to ever worry about God’s feeling toward us. We never have to question his kindness toward us. And we never have to fret over what will happen to us in the future. Jesus is with us! The Holy Spirit is in us! We are God’s forever. That’s hope. That’s joy. That’s peace. That’s what it means to be a Christian.
Because of Jesus we have true hope for the future.
With Jesus we can always have joy and peace in our hearts.
DO SOMETHING TOGETHER
Sing this song about our hope in Jesus together.
PRAY TOGETHER
Jesus,
You are my hope. You saved me and will never leave me alone. I can’t wait for you to take me to heaven to be with you forever. Help me to have joy and peace today as I remember that you love me.
Amen.
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