BY THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT 3

13 Now may the GOD of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 15:13 (NASB95)

May the GOD of your hope so fill you with all joy and peace in believing [through the experience of your faith] that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound and be overflowing (bubbling over) with hope.

Amplified

Now the GOD of the hope fill you with every joy and hope in the sphere of believing, resulting in your super-abounding in the sphere of the hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Wuest

Even the promises of GOD will not produce these graces unless they are divinely applied to us. Note that it is not merely “through the operation” but “through the power” of the Holy Spirit, for there is much in us which opposes!

Nor can these graces be increased or even maintained by us in our own strength — though they can be decreased by us, through grieving the Spirit.

They are to be sought by prayer, by eyeing the promises, and by looking for the enablement of the Holy Spirit. That hope is but a vain fancy which is not fixed on GOD and inwrought by Him.

“Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope” (Ps. 119:49).

Imagine for a moment Micheal Archangel came to announce;

“The following churches will be closed due to lack of power.”

The idea of churches closing due to lack of power conjures up some spiritual parallels that directly tie into Jesus’ promise of the Spirit.

Just prior to His ascension, Jesus told His men in Acts 1:8 ,

“You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

He directly attached the coming of the Spirit to the empowering of believers.

This gives us reason to examine some important issues in this concluding section.

What Is Power? The word power used by Jesus in Acts 1:8 is the Greek word dunamis. It is defined variously as “strength, power, or ability.”

Specifically, it refers to “inherent power, power residing in a thing by virtue of its nature, or which a person or thing exerts and puts forth.”

This spiritual power is not inherent to the believer, however. Notice very carefully that it is inherent to the Person of the Holy Spirit who resides within the believer.

How does this power manifest itself in our lives? I would suggest that there are at least three (though probably more) clear ways the Holy Spirit expresses His power in the lives of the redeemed.

How does the Spirit express life in us? By causing our lives to be profoundly different from the hopeless world that surrounds us.

Notice Paul’s words in Romans 15:13,

“Now may the GOD of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

The power of the Holy Spirit provides for us the things that human effort and human religion and human righteousness could never achieve.

He is there to empower our living with a glorious sense of joy, peace, and hope that can carry us through the trials and hardships that are the inevitable by-products of life in a fallen world.

The power we need is found in a Person Who has been sent by the Father to bring fullness to our lives.

In a world that is in mad pursuit of happiness, we can have JOY by the power of the Holy Spirit.

In a world that is crying out from the grief of constant conflict, we can have true PEACE.

In a world that is filled with empty despair and a bleak future, we can have a bright HOPE.

Why? Because the power of the Holy Spirit can equip us for (Ed: “supernatural”) life in a way that the world cannot grasp. His power can enable us to experience the things that the world craves and cannot secure, but are ours by the Spirit.

This is the ABUNDANT LIFE Jesus spoke of (Jn 10:10) — a life that is full and rich and deep and lasting. A life that is lived by the power of the Holy Spirit.

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