Hope & Confidence

¹Of David. The LORD is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life—whom shall I dread? ²When the wicked came upon me to devour my flesh, my enemies and foes stumbled and fell. ³Though an army encamps around me, my heart will not fear; though a war breaks out against me, I will keep my trust. ⁴One thing I have asked of the LORD; this is what I desire: to dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and seek Him in His temple. ⁵For in the day of trouble He will hide me in His shelter; He will conceal me under the cover of His tent; He will set me high upon a rock. ⁶Then my head will be held high above my enemies around me. At His tabernacle I will offer sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing and make music to the LORD. ⁷Hear, O LORD, my voice when I call; be merciful and answer me. ⁸My heart said, “Seek His face.” Your face, O LORD, I will seek. ⁹Hide not Your face from me, nor turn away Your servant in anger. You have been my helper; do not leave me or forsake me, O God of my salvation. ¹⁰Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me. ¹¹Teach me Your way, O LORD, and lead me on a level path, because of my oppressors. ¹²Do not hand me over to the will of my foes, for false witnesses rise up against me, breathing out violence. ¹³Still I am certain to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. ¹⁴Wait patiently for the LORD; be strong and courageous. Wait patiently for the LORD!

⁵Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why the unease within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him for the salvation of His presence. ⁶O my God, my soul despairs within me. Therefore I remember You from the land of Jordan and the peaks of Hermon—even from Mount Mizar. ⁷Deep calls to deep in the roar of Your waterfalls; all Your breakers and waves have rolled over me. ⁸The LORD decrees His loving devotion by day, and at night His song is with me as a prayer to the God of my life. ⁹I say to God my Rock, “Why have You forgotten me? Why must I walk in sorrow because of the enemy’s oppression?” ¹⁰Like the crushing of my bones, my enemies taunt me, while they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” ¹¹Why 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.

²⁸Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary; His understanding is beyond searching out. ²⁹He gives power to the faint and increases the strength of the weak. ³⁰Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall. ³¹But those who wait upon the LORD will renew their strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint.

²¹Yet I call this to mind, and therefore I have hope: ²²Because of the loving devotion of the LORD we are not consumed, for His mercies never fail. ²³They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness! ²⁴“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in Him.” ²⁵The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. ²⁶It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.

¹Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ²through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. ³Not only that, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; ⁴perseverance, character; and character, hope. ⁵And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.

¹⁸I consider that our present sufferings are not comparable to the glory that will be revealed in us. ¹⁹The creation waits in eager expectation for the revelation of the sons of God. ²⁰For the creation was subjected to futility, not by its own will, but because of the One who subjected it, in hope ²¹that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. ²²We know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until the present time. ²³Not only that, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. ²⁴For in this hope we were saved; but hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he can already see? ²⁵But if we hope for what we do not yet see, we wait for it patiently. ²⁶In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know how we ought to pray, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans too deep for words. ²⁷And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. ²⁸And we know that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose. ²⁹For those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers. ³⁰And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified. ³¹What then shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³²He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also, along with Him, freely give us all things? ³³Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. ³⁴Who is there to condemn us? For Christ Jesus, who died, and more than that was raised to life, is at the right hand of God—and He is interceding for us. ³⁵Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ³⁶As it is written: “For Your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” ³⁷No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. ³⁸For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

¹³Now 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.

¹¹We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure. ¹²Then you will not be sluggish, but will imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised. ¹³When God made His promise to Abraham, since He had no one greater to swear by, He swore by Himself, ¹⁴saying, “I will surely bless you and multiply your descendants.” ¹⁵And so Abraham, after waiting patiently, obtained the promise. ¹⁶Men swear by someone greater than themselves, and their oath serves as a confirmation to end all argument. ¹⁷So when God wanted to make the unchanging nature of His purpose very clear to the heirs of the promise, He guaranteed it with an oath. ¹⁸Thus by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be strongly encouraged. ¹⁹We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, ²⁰where Jesus our forerunner has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.

¹⁹Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, ²⁰by the new and living way opened for us through the curtain of His body, ²¹and since we have a great priest over the house of God, ²²let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. ²³Let us hold resolutely to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful.

³Blessed 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, ⁴and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, reserved in heaven for you, ⁵who through faith are shielded by God’s power for the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. ⁶In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in various trials ⁷so that the proven character of your faith—more precious than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. ⁸Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and rejoice with an inexpressible and glorious joy, ⁹now that you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

⁵Rest in God alone, O my soul, for my hope comes from Him. ⁶He alone is my rock and my salvation; He is my fortress; I will not be shaken. ⁷My salvation and my honor rest on God, my strong rock; my refuge is in God. ⁸Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts before Him. God is our refuge. Selah

²⁵Do not fear sudden danger or the ruin that overtakes the wicked, ²⁶for the LORD will be your confidence and will keep your foot from the snare.

⁷But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in Him. ⁸He is like a tree planted by the waters that sends out its roots toward the stream. It does not fear when the heat comes, and its leaves are always green. It does not worry in a year of drought, nor does it cease to produce fruit.

⁴Such confidence before God is ours through Christ. ⁵Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim that anything comes from us, but our competence comes from God. ⁶And He has qualified us as ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

¹⁶Therefore we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, yet our inner self is being renewed day by day. ¹⁷For our light and momentary affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory that is far beyond comparison. ¹⁸So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

¹¹according to the eternal purpose that He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. ¹²In Him and through faith in Him we may enter God’s presence with boldness and confidence.

⁶being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

²⁰But our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, ²¹who, by the power that enables Him to subject all things to Himself, will transform our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body.

²³if indeed you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope of the gospel you heard, which has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant. ²⁷To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

⁸But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and the helmet of our hope of salvation. ⁹For God has not appointed us to suffer wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. ¹⁰He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with Him. ¹¹Therefore encourage and build one another up, just as you are already doing.

⁶But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are His house, if we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope of which we boast. ¹⁴We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly to the end the assurance we had at first.

¹⁴Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we profess. ¹⁵For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who was tempted in every way that we are, yet was without sin. ¹⁶Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

³⁵So do not throw away your confidence; it holds a great reward. ³⁶You need to persevere, so that after you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised. ³⁷For, “In just a little while, He who is coming will come and will not delay. ³⁸But My righteous one will live by faith; and if he shrinks back, I will take no pleasure in him.” ³⁹But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.

¹⁹And by this we will know that we belong to the truth, and will assure our hearts in His presence: ²⁰Even if our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts, and He knows all things. ²¹Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God, ²²and we will receive from Him whatever we ask, because we keep His commandments and do what is pleasing in His sight.

¹³I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. ¹⁴And this is the confidence that we have before Him: If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. ¹⁵And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we already possess what we have asked of Him.