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.
Romans 15:13 (NKJV)
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.
Romans 15:13 (NIV)
Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.
Romans 15:13 (KJV)
I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 15:13 (NLT)
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.
Romans 15:13 (ESV)
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 (NASB)Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.lockman.org
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing [through the experience of your faith] that by the power of the Holy Spirit you will abound in hope and overflow with confidence in His promises.
Romans 15:13 (AMP)Scripture quotations taken from the Amplified® Bible (AMP), Copyright © 2015 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.lockman.org
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.
Romans 15:13 (AMPC)Scripture quotations taken from the Amplified® Bible (AMPC), Copyright © 1954, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.lockman.org
Oh! May the God of green hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that your believing lives, filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit, will brim over with hope!
Romans 15:13 (MSG)Scripture quotations from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.
New Covenant Meaning
God Is Called the God of Hope
Paul does not call Him the God of patience or the God of endurance, though those qualities appear in the verses just before this one. He calls Him the God of hope. Hope is not wishful thinking in the biblical sense. It is confident expectation based on the character and promises of God. When Paul calls God the God of hope, he is saying that hope originates in God's nature. He is its source. If you are running low on hope right now, you have not gone to the wrong place by coming to God. You have come to the one who produces it. He fills. You receive.
Joy and Peace Come Through Believing, Not Through Circumstances
Paul prays that God would fill believers with all joy and peace "in believing." The joy and peace are not contingent on circumstances being resolved. They come through the act of trusting God in the middle of whatever is happening. This is one of the most important distinctions in the New Testament. If your joy and peace depend on your situation improving, they are always one bad report away from disappearing. But if they come through believing, they can be present even in the middle of difficulty. The peace that passes understanding (Philippians 4:7) is not the peace of having everything figured out. It is the peace of having placed everything in God's hands.
In the New Covenant, the Holy Spirit is the agent who produces hope in the believer. Romans 5:5 says hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. The hope in Romans 15:13 is not generated by human optimism or force of will. It is poured in by a Person, the Spirit of God who lives inside the believer. This is what makes New Covenant hope categorically different from what the world calls hope. The world's hope depends on circumstances trending the right direction. The believer's hope is anchored in the resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:3) and generated from the inside out by the Spirit who raised Him from the dead.
Application for Your Life
Ask the God of Hope to Fill You
Romans 15:13 is structured as a prayer, which means it is a model for how you can pray for yourself and for others. Ask God directly to fill you with joy and peace in believing. Ask Him to cause you to abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is not asking for something outside His will. It is asking Him to do what He is called: to be the God of hope who fills His people. When hope feels thin, do not white-knuckle your way through. Ask the source of hope to produce more of it in you. That is a prayer He is eager to answer.
Protect the Believing That Produces Joy and Peace
Since joy and peace come "in believing," the thing worth protecting is your believing. What you feed your faith matters. What you expose your mind to matters. The person who fills their mind with every bad report and every worst-case scenario is not setting themselves up to experience the joy and peace that come through trusting God. This is not about denying reality. It is about choosing what reality you give the most attention to. Feed the believing by spending time in the word, in worship, and in the community of people who are trusting God. The joy and peace will follow.
Prayer Based on This Verse
God of hope, I come to You as the source of everything I need in this area. I ask You to fill me, completely fill me, with all joy and peace in believing. I choose to trust You right now with what I am facing. And because I am trusting You, I receive the joy and peace that come with that trust. Let me abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. I do not want a thin, struggling kind of hope. I want the overflowing, bubbling-over hope that Your Spirit produces in me. Fill me, Lord. I am asking and I am receiving. In Jesus name. Amen.