A commentary by Amy Carmichael on the banner scripture for this blog:

Rom 5.5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

This verse seems clearly to mean that love comes first into our hearts.  Then because love has come we hope, and that hope “never disappoints,” as Weymouth puts it.

Experience worketh hope, Romans 5.4 tells us.  And so it does.  But it also worketh fear.  If we have had long experience of the weakness of souls, and seen many a time what seemed a great blaze-up of blessing fizzle out, we do become fearful of hoping too much.

And yet the word stands.  Here it is Way’s paraphrase (vv.3-5): “I will go further, and say that we actually exult in such afflictions as ours, knowing as we do that affliction develops unflinching endurance; that endurance develops tested strength, and tested strength develops the habit of hope.  This hope is no delusive one, as is proved by the fact that the brimming river of God’s love has already overflowed into our hearts, on-drawn by His Holy Spirit, which He has given to us.”