With Hope There Is No Shame!

What assurance do we have that God has truly made a promise to us, and that he will fulfill it? The apostle Paul sums up in one brief statement how it is that we can know that we have the promise already received. And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Romans 5:5 This is a statement of the most profound kind. It is one thing to read on the pages of the Bible a promise that God will be with us through each of our trials and struggles. Yet it completely another when the Holy Spirit bears witness in us.

Our hope, faith with expectation, that God will fulfill his promise is affirmed in us in that God has poured his love, and therefore himself, into our hearts via his Holy Spirit, whom we have received. Let us just look at a few scriptures outside of Romans to see this at work.

So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 1 John 4:16

And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him. Acts 5:32

so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. Hebrews 6:18

You see from the scriptures that God is love, so having poured His love into our hearts, He is really pouring Himself into us. This all happens because He gives His Spirit to those who obey and believe Him. And we can rest in the fact that this has happened even if we don’t “feel” it, because it is impossible for God to lie. So therefore, our hope in Him, will not disappoint us or bring us to shame, because He who made the promise is faithful and true to keep the promise. God is worthy to be believed and trusted, and we have the assurance that the promise is true because God is.

Christian – these are truths that should make your heart sing with joy, and yet still your troubled mind. Therefore brethren we should flee to the arms of the waiting savior, even in our trials, even when the road is hard and the night is dark. Because hope that is in God will never, and God means never, disappoint or bring you to shame.

Dear Lord,
I believe your promises and stand assured that my hope in you will not be put to shame. I lay down all my doubts, and ask you to still my troubled heart. I worship you because you are, and love you because you will always be. I surrender.