“Hope in Jesus through times of trouble reveals both the wonder of who God is and who you are.”

Day 1

Featured Verse: Romans 5:1–5
- How have you seen suffering produce endurance in your own life, and in what ways has that process deepened your trust in God’s purposes?
- Reflecting on the chain from endurance to character to hope, how has God used trials to form Christlike character in you, and how has that character strengthened your hope?
- In what specific ways have you experienced God’s love being poured into your heart through the Holy Spirit, and how does that assurance keep your hope from putting you to shame?

“It is a mark of great grace to be able to acquiesce in tribulation and to accept it with patient resignation at the Lord’s hands. But it is a sign of a still higher state of grace when we glory in tribulation—when we welcome it and say, ‘Now, the Lord is about to elevate me to the upper class in His school—to teach me some deeper truths than I have hitherto learned—to give me a closer acquaintance with some mystery of His kingdom than I have previously had—to work in my heart some new grace which has never been there before.’” -Charles Spurgeon

Day 2

Featured Verse: Romans 5:6–8
- What does it mean for you personally that God demonstrated His love “while you were still sinners,” and how does that reality affect the way you respond to your own ongoing struggles with sin?
- Reflecting on the fact that Christ died for the ungodly, how does this truth free you from trying to earn or maintain God’s favor through your own strength or goodness?
- In what specific ways has the demonstration of God’s love through Christ’s death for you while still a sinner produced greater assurance, humility, or gratitude in your relationship with Him?

“Verse six is, of course, one of the greatest verses in the whole Bible. I don’t hesitate to assert that there is no greater statement of the love of God in the whole Bible than in this sixth verse of the fifth chapter of Paul’s epistle to the Romans. When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. … Now then verse six really says everything. It’s the complete statement. And what he does in verses 7 and 8 is just to elaborate it a bit. Lest anybody might fail to understand how great it is.” -Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Day 3

Featured Verse: Romans 5:9–11
- In what ways does the reality that you were once an enemy of God, yet reconciled through the death of His Son, deepen your understanding of the depth and initiative of God’s grace toward you?
- How has the gift of reconciliation through our Lord Jesus Christ led you to “rejoice in God,” and in what specific ways does that joy express itself in your daily life?
- In light of having “now received reconciliation,” how does this completed work of Christ free you to live with greater boldness, gratitude, and hope rather than fear or self-reliance?

“What an invincible argument this is for the safety of all true believers in Jesus! Did He die for them and reconcile them unto His Father by His death, when they were enemies? Then, will He not certainly save them, now that they are reconciled, seeing that He always lives to intercede for them? Will He not save them by His life? Assuredly, He will!” -Charles Spurgeon

blog