Faith,Hope and Love…
1 Corinthians 13:13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
The many times I have written about Faith and Hope yet we still seem to end up forgetting what they are. Is it because we have little faith in our Father or little hope in our future? If so what can we do about it?
In my last post “Faith and Hope” I attempted to bring it all together in straight forward everyday talk. Today I will add the last part, Love, and show why it is the greatest of all three.
God is love! All things are possible through Him and only Him. It is through His love we have faith and a genuine hope for things to come. I believe this to be fact and live my life accordingly. He has never let me down. Even when I fell and fractured my hip He was there to pick me up and comfort me through the pain and surgery.
1 John 4:16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
LOVE IS… being willing to have your life complicated by the needs and struggles of others without impatience or anger.
LOVE IS… making a daily commitment to resist the needless moments of conflict that come from pointing out and responding to minor offenses.
LOVE IS… being more committed to unity and understanding than you are to winning, accusing, or being right.
LOVE IS… a making a daily commitment to admit your sin, weakness, and failure and to resist the temptation to offer an excuse or shift the blame.
LOVE IS… being willing, when confronted by another, to examine your heart rather than rising to your defense or shifting the focus.
LOVE IS… being willing to invest the time necessary to discuss, examine, and understand the relational problems you face, staying on task until the problem is removed or you have agreed upon a strategy of response.
LOVE IS… being willing to always ask for forgiveness and always being committed to grant forgiveness when it is requested.
LOVE IS… daily admitting to yourself, the other person, and God that you are unable to be driven by a cruciform love without God’s protecting, providing, forgiving, rescuing, and delivering grace.
Love is all this and much, much more. All things we do in love shows others we have God in our hearts and that we let Him be our guide in our everyday life.
So that brings me back to 1 Corinthians 13:13 …and the greatest of these is love.
By the way in case you didn’t know: 1 Corinthians 13 is called the love chapter. You should read it again and again, it will open your eyes and heart to life.
Walk daily with God at your side!
Love always,
Ed
Ed Christian's World 