For this reason I am telling you, whatever things you ask for in prayer [in accordance with God’s will], believe [with confident trust] that you have received them, and they will be given to you.

He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves and were confident that they were righteous [posing outwardly as upright and in right standing with God], and who viewed others with contempt:

I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have [perfect] peace. In the world you have tribulation and distress and suffering, but be courageous [be confident, be undaunted, be filled with joy]; I have overcome the world.” [My conquest is accomplished, My victory abiding.]

I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation [from His wrath and punishment] to everyone who believes [in Christ as Savior], to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

and [if you] are confident that you are a [qualified] guide to the blind [those untaught in theology], a light to those who are in darkness,

This righteousness of God comes through faith in Jesus Christ for all those [Jew or Gentile] who believe [and trust in Him and acknowledge Him as God’s Son]. There is no distinction,

and endurance, proven character (spiritual maturity); and proven character, hope and confident assurance [of eternal salvation].

And now there remain: faith [abiding trust in God and His promises], hope [confident expectation of eternal salvation], love [unselfish love for others growing out of God’s love for me], these three [the choicest graces]; but the greatest of these is love.

I write to you [perfectly] confident of your obedient compliance, since I know that you will do even more than I ask.

And again [He says],

“My trust and confident hope will be placed in Him.”

And again,

“Here I am, I and the children whom God has given Me.”

and I trust [confidently] in the Lord that soon I also will be coming to you.

What I say in this confident boasting, I say not as the Lord would [with His authority], but foolishly.

And our hope for you [our confident expectation of good for you] is firmly grounded [assured and unshaken], since we know that just as you share as partners in our sufferings, so also you share as partners in our comfort.

He rescued us from so great a threat of death, and will continue to rescue us. On Him we have set our hope. And He will again rescue us [from danger and draw us near],

And I wrote this same thing to you, so that when I came, I would not be filled with sorrow by those who ought to make me glad, for I trusted in you and felt confident that my joy would be shared by all of you.

Since we have such a [glorious] hope and confident expectation, we speak with great courage,

So then, being always filled with good courage and confident hope, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord—

we are [as I was saying] of good courage and confident hope, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.

otherwise, if any Macedonians come with me and find you unprepared, we—to say nothing of yourselves—will be humiliated for being so confident.

You are looking [only] at the outward appearance of things. If anyone is confident that he is Christ’s, he should reflect and consider this, that just as he is Christ’s, so too are we.

We do not go beyond our proper limit, boasting in the work of other men, but we have the hope that as your faith [in Christ and His divine power] continues to grow, our field among you may be greatly expanded [but still within the limits of our commission],