Feeling Hopeless?

“Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Paul calls God the source of hope and prays that joy and peace in believing would overflow into it. The verse is a benediction inside a section about welcoming one another, which is the setting for the hope being described.

“Not only that, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.”

Paul builds a chain from suffering to endurance to character to hope, and grounds it by saying that hope does not disappoint. The argument matters: hope here is produced by something rather than merely felt.

“We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain,”

Hope is called an anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast, and is tied to the promise and oath God made to Abraham. An anchor holds because it is fixed somewhere other than the boat.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,”

Peter calls it a living hope and locates its cause in the resurrection of Jesus. The inheritance he describes is kept for believers rather than produced by them.

“Because of the loving devotion of the LORD we are not consumed, for His mercies never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness! “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in Him.””

Written after the destruction of Jerusalem, the passage says God's mercies are new every morning and that the writer will hope in him. The hope is stated in the middle of lament, not after the lament has lifted.

“Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why the unease within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God.”

The psalmist addresses his own soul, asks why it is cast down, and tells it to hope in God. It is a model of hope spoken deliberately rather than felt spontaneously.