And Now These 3 Remain: Faith, Hope , & Love
Are You Not One Body In Christ?
1 CORINTHIANS 13:13
“And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
I Corinthians 13:13 NKJV
https://www.bible.com/114/1co.13.13.nkjv
Three things will last forever; faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love.
As in the morally corrupt Corinth, love has become a mixed up term with little meaning.
Many people are still confused about love.
But love is the greatest of all human qualities and comes from God Himself.
Love is more than words or a feeling, it is an action, and actions speaks louder than words.
“Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us.”
I John 4:17-19 NKJV
Love is a choice and involves unconditional selfless service to others with no hidden agendas nor expectations of anything in return.
Fear is the opposite of faith like hot is the opposite of cold. Together, God’s love and faith remove all fear, for “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
Hebrews 11:1 NKJV
Faith is the foundation and content of God’s message. Neither our money, nor status, nor good deeds can purchase our place with God. Neither can our sin, past, present, or future steal our salvation; “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For “whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.””
Romans 10:9-13 NKJV
Hope is the attitude and the focus, while love is action. When faith and hope come together in one’s life, he or she comes to recognise, experience, and understands God’s love, and therefore becomes free to love others as God loves us.
Paul tells us, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
I Corinthians 13:1-7 NKJV
My beloved, “Let him who is taught the word share in all good things with him who teaches. Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.”
Galatians 6:6-10 NKJV
Therefore, put on love, especially to those of the household of faith.
If we cannot trust our brothers and sisters in Christ, who can we trust.
Are we not one body in Christ? “Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
I Peter 2:1-5 NKJV
Love doesn’t envy, or gossip, nor is it jealous or seeks its own.
Furthermore, Christ came not to condemn, and nor should we (JOHN 3:17).
To condemn our brothers and sisters in Christ with ungodly judgments and negative words, is to condemn the ministry of Christ.
My beloved, we are living stones, individual parts of one body of which Christ is the head.
To attack our brothers and sisters in Christ with backstabbing negative words and gossip is like attacking our own bodies; it is an action of self-destruction and like cancer shall grow throughout the whole body until it is entirely removed.
To love others is a decision and an action of care towards others without expectation of something in return.
“I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore He says: “When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, And gave gifts to men.” (Now this, “He ascended”—what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.) And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.”
Ephesians 4:1-16 NKJV
All glory to God forever and ever! Amen.
