Faith, Hope, and Love

Everyone has heard of 1 Corinthians 13:13, "And these three will remain - faith, hope, and love - and the greatest of these is love". But what does that mean? Does it mean that we shouldn't have faith? That we shouldn't have hope? Can we have one without the others? What exactly is faith? What is hope? What is LOVE?

These three things must be important because throughout the Bible they are brought up. Why are they so important? Why is love so important? This verse is so simple, yet so complex. Could the answer of our purpose as Christians lie in these words? Does it? That leads to the question of the purpose of Christianity.

Honestly, I don't know the answers but I have a feeling that this can be explained by God. All of our questions will be answered in Heaven but God has given us His Word to be used on this side of Heaven. It is quite amazing that thousands of years of history and God's words are recorded in the Book sitting next to me. We must look into this Book for the answers.

What is FAITH?

One of my favorite chapters in the Bible about faith is Hebrews 11 (click to read). The first verse describes faith 'Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.' The chapter goes on to give examples of people in the Old Testament who lived out their faith in the Lord.

What reward will having faith bring? When Abraham had enough faith in God to sacrifice his son, whom he had after age one-hundred, (as the story goes, God provided a ram in the thicket to sacrifice instead of his son), God rewarded Abraham greatly by promising his descendants to be a numerous as the stars (Genesis 22).

But that was before the Son of Man, Jesus, came down to Earth to die for our sins. Sacrifices to the Lord showed faith. What about now? Didn't Jesus die for our sins? Wasn't he the sacrifice for our sins? Yes, He was. We need to have faith in the Lord to be rewarded for our sins. John 3 talks about how we need to believe in Him to have eternal life. We need to have FAITH in Him to have eternal life. After all, we have not physically seen Christ but we know He came for our sins. Having faith will reward us even in death (Revelation 2:10).

What is HOPE?

You may have heard of Job, whose life was literally torn apart when his family were killed, his animals stolen, his camels and servants stolen, and his house ruined. Yet Job had hope in the Lord. He had hope that the Lord would make his life better. In Job 1:21, Job said: “I came naked from my mother’s womb, and I will be naked when I leave. The Lord gave me what I had, and the Lord has taken it away. Praise the name of the Lord!” Through the hard times he kept on praising the Lord, he had hope in the Lord that better times would come.

This is the hope that we should all have a Christians. We have hope that although we may get persecuted for our faith in Jesus Christ we will still have the hope in Him. This hope will never be taken away from us.

There is a beautiful chapter (Job 14) in Job about hope and the things we can have if we have faith. I find it interesting the the words hope and faith are intertwined. Faith is the things hoped for and we have our hope is Jesus Christ of whom we, as Christians, have faith in. But this would not have happened without the love that God has shown us.

What is LOVE?

God. You may have heard God is love. But what exactly does that mean? Yes, we have all heard of John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." Okay, so God loved us so much that He sent His son to die for us.

Love is one of God's greatest commandments. He has shown this to us as an example. He has shown His love to us by adopting us into His family. He wants us to do the same towards others.

One of my favorite stories in the Bible takes place in Matthew 22:34-40. A Pharisee, thinking he will outsmart Jesus, asks Jesus what the most important commandment is. Jesus replies to love God first and then neighbors. In John 15, He wants us to love as He has loved us, by giving our lives to others for love. Without love, we would never have the chance to live eternally with Him. It it too hard not to return this love?

These three things are nearly impossible to have without the other two. If we have FAITH in the HOPE of salvation the LOVE of God will allow us to be saved. In the end, if these things are completed, we will be rewarded. We will have wondrous joy and treasures waiting for us in Heaven.

Romans 5
Faith Brings Joy
1 Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by FAITH, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. 2 Because of our FAITH, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory.

3 We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. 4 And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident HOPE of salvation. 5 And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his LOVE.

6 When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. 7 Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. 8 But God showed his great LOVE for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. 9 And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. 10 For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. 11 So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God.

Now, we must now share the FAITH, HOPE, and LOVE of the Lord God, our Father. But remember the greatest of these is LOVE, because without it we would be hopeless and we would have no faith.