Lost Hope

Just finished Sunday’s message. I WANT TO LET IT OUT! I’ll try not to blog it early, but no promises.

As a way of getting around that, here are some lines I wrote in my journal today. Only a slice of it made it to the message, but it is definitely worth thinking about…

Paul writes to the church in Corinth:

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
(1 Corinthians 13:13 ESV)

He tells us about three elements of our lives that supersede all others: faith, hope and love.

Love cannot truly exist apart from faith. It is God who teaches us what real love is, based upon His own love demonstrated toward us. Faith is needed when accepting who God is and what He teaches us. Love is, therefore, dependent upon faith.

Faith is likewise dependent upon hope.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for…
(Hebrews 11:1 ESV)

Many in our world today have lost hope. At the beginning of Steven Curtis Chapman’s song, Heaven in the Real World, you hear Chuck Colson ask the question, “Where is the hope?”

If we do not have hope, we lose the basis of faith. If we lose faith, we cannot truly know and give out love. How then are we to enjoy “the greatest of these”?