The Greatest

There's a verse I've been meditating on for over a month now. It's 1 Corinthians 13:13- "Three things will last forever- faith, hope, and love- and the greatest of these is love (The New Living Translation)." The three are all interrelated, but I kept wondering why love would be the greatest. Another translation, the New International Version, uses the word remain instead of the words, last forever. Either way these three things will endure throughout all eternity. That's pretty awesome to think about. Then I wondered why will faith be needed in heaven? Perhaps we will be interceding for those still living. Perhaps we will need faith just to get over the fact we made it to heaven as unworthy of receiving it as we are. Perhaps hope will be needed too because when you have faith in something there is a hopeful expectation tied to it. Having faith in God gives us the hopeful expectation of seeing Him face to face. There's the hopeful expectation of answered prayers we laid before the Lord in faith. For instance, my wife and I are praying in faith for children, so we have a hopeful expectation of the pattering of little feet around the house.

What does love have to do with this, you ask? I think love is the goal of the first two, faith and hope. Faith brings hopeful expectation. Hopeful expectation fires love up. It stokes the flame of love. When the expectation of something is fulfilled, there is a deeper love and appreciation for the one who fulfilled it. I think of it as a child who has faith in their parent to get them a birthday gift they wanted. They have hope the parent they love will do it. Upon receiving the gift, the child has a greater love and appreciation for the parent.

How does love prevail over faith and hope? Well, this thought just occurred to me recently through a recent event. Sometimes we may not have much faith in God. Sometimes we may not have much hope in anything. Combined, these faith and hope deficits lead us to give into those sins that so easily besets us (Hebrews 12:1) and thus we may even hurt those we love most by our actions, even God. But love endures.

Love remains. God still loves us. In spite of what we have done, nothing can separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:38-39). The enduring love of a mother hurt by a child she loves and continues in faith to pray for their salvation. The hopeful expectation that God will hear and answer her prayer. The love and adoration of God who saves the child in answer to her prayers. Love prevails over faith and hope and faith and hope deepen and enliven love.

I am so thankful that nothing can separate me from God's unconditional love. I am thankful for my wife's enduring love. I am thankful for the love of my family and friends. I am so blessed. The greatest of these is LOVE!

God is in love with you!

You may not believe this but you are created in the image of God to be in relationship with Him. He has given you the choice to receive His undying love for you or to reject it. Regardless though, He still loves you the same. Now that doesn't mean that if you reject Him that you will live with Him forever in Heaven. It means that of you reject Him, he still loves you. It's like a father who loves his adult son but allows him to make his own choices and receive the rewards and consequences of his decisions. Regardless of the decisions the father's love remains the same. God will never force you to receive his love but He will remind you of it and you will feel the absence of it in your life should you reject Him. And, nothing in your life will ever be able to take the place of His love, no matter what you replace it with. Everything we cherish and pursue in this life apart from God, will perish: loved ones, money, cars, women, possessions, etc. When you die someone else receives them. But with God's love received through His son Jesus Christ and the many blessings that come with receiving God's love, they will never perish. I invite you to search your heart and its pursuits, see how happy you are, see how empty life has been without God, try God and see if He won't reveal Himself to you in ways you never experienced nor imagined. He loves you and desires to spend time in relationship with you. His promises are true. He will never disappoint you.