My Recent Prayer

Normally I'm an ESV loving girl when it comes to Scripture translations in the English language. However, recently for my Bible reading I decided to read my daily portion in a few translations, the ESV, the NLT, and The Message. I wouldn't do any deep studying out of the last two, but sometimes they give me a refreshing new perspective that is encouraging or helpful. The translators have done a lot of interpreting for us, and meshed it down into a 3rd grade reading level, so it's simple. I was finishing up Romans last weekend and this verse stood out in the NLT:

Romans 15:13

So I pray that God, who gives you hope, will keep you happy and full of peace as you believe in him. May you overflow with hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.

As I thought through these words and the passage before it this hope is put into context. Our hope is not in our circumstances, or our health, or our financial status, or the success of our children, or even in any emotion we might feel. Our hope is in the gospel, in the peace with God Jesus secured for us on the cross, and power that he provides for us in Christ.

Verse 12 quotes Isaiah and says that it is in Jesus that the Gentiles (me!) will hope. Based on that here is my little paraphrase.

So I pray that God, who gave us Jesus, will keep us happy and full of peace as you believe in Him. May we overflow with Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit. 

Jesus is my hope. Not the changes in our circumstances that my heart so deeply desires. Just more of Jesus. Oh God make me overflow with Jesus! That has been my heart this week.... to just be overflowing with Him. That it's not more money, or more of the jobs I might want, or more time with my kids, or more ministry, or more of anything that isn't Jesus. I want Him, not the feelings he gives, but just Him. I pray you desire that too.