We read Bible stories with the benefit of hindsight and life’s uncertainties appear easier when bravely experienced by some historic hero. Job, facing the loss of all he loved most followed by a brutal illness, pioneered a path of living hope through suffering that helps us with our pain today. 

Keeping hope alive when hard pressed is difficult for everyone. Here Peter encourages Christians to do so, even in the face of real hostility. There is no consensus on what constitutes life as a ‘living hope’. It is a process rather than a state. We see this as we change physically and psychologically with age. 

Peter, former fisherman and Christian disciple, encourages the Christian Church suffering their first violent persecution under Roman emperor Nero. This was brutal, a source of great fear amongst the early Christian communities. Scattered throughout what is today Turkey, these disciples found themselves the unwitting scapegoats for Nero’s personal plans for grandeur. 

Pressure makes its impact on all of us. A great metaphor is a car tyre. Four rubber rings filled with air keep us from disaster over various terrains at differing speeds. A tyre has inflated air pressure pushing outward to maintain its shape. It also experiences the external pressure exerted by the road surface pushing back and impacting that shape and the tyre’s performance. 

In this well-known story, Jonah receives instructions from God to deliver a warning message to the city of Nineveh. God has seen their ‘wickedness’ (v1). However, instead of obeying, Jonah runs away. The ship he’s on gets into trouble, he is found to be the reason, the sailors throw him overboard, and Jonah is swallowed whole by a large fish (v17). 

This psalm is a beautiful promise of ‘shelter’ and ‘rest’ in God. It is a psalm we often quote when we feel we are being attacked or oppressed in some way. Verse 2 tells us that God is a ‘refuge’ and a ‘fortress’, and later verses speak of salvation and covering. Whatever the terrors, seen or unseen, ‘no harm will overtake [us]’ (v10). 

Reading this passage in Ephesians encourages us to grasp the depth of the love of God, in Christ Jesus. Once we do, says the apostle Paul, we can be ‘filled to the measure of all the fullness of God’ (v19)! What would it be like for us to be filled with God’s fullness? In this passage is also found the astonishing promise that He is ‘able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us’ (v20). 

The apostle Peter is telling his readers about the inheritance that is kept for believers in heaven, that ‘can never perish, spoil or fade’ (v4). Here, Peter encourages his readers that although we may suffer all kinds of trials and grief in this world, these troubles will prove the ‘genuineness of [our] faith’ (v7). 

This chapter is full of excitement and promise. We are spiritually blessed by God! It is through His ‘pleasure and will’ (v5) that we are adopted into His family. We have ‘redemption through his blood’ (v7) and all this is ‘lavished on us’ (v8) by our generous and loving heavenly Father. This is all for the glory of God; we have the security of being ‘marked… with a seal’ which is the Spirit (v13), who guarantees our holy inheritance. 

Zacchaeus is determined to see Jesus! He is small, so he climbs up a tree to get a better view of the Lord passing through Jericho; he couldn’t get a proper view any other way. His tenacity is rewarded as Jesus tells him that He is going to spend time with Zacchaeus at his house!