7-26-2014

 Good Morning All,

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

     Love seems to always be the answer.  The Beatles sang that, “All you need is love”.  The Andrews Sisters sang “I wanna be loved”; Elvis wanted to someone to “love me tender”.  The Righteous Brothers lost that loving feeling.  We speak an awful lot about love, in and out of our faith.  Out of our faith, the word can mean about anything from people to pizza we “love it” but what about our faith and what does Paul mean when he says the greatest of these is love?  How can love be greater than hope or faith?

   As Paul addresses this statement, we can read it in two ways; one way is temporal and one way is eternal.  The temporal understanding is about our earthly relationships.  Faith is something that you have.  You have faith; it benefits you and you alone.  Each one of us has to have faith, on our own, to hold onto the promise that God makes to us.  Faith sustains me and helps me to grow closer to God through Christ. 

   Hope is what keeps you going through the toughest of times.  No matter how difficult the trek or dark the night, you have hope because of the promise that there will be a better day.  Someday, God will rescue you from this sin filled world.  Jesus will return and restore creation to its perfect state and you with it.

    Love is the greatest because you have to share love.  Love only exists when it is freely given away.  You cannot hold onto your love; if you do, it fails to accomplish its task.  You can hold onto your faith, you can hold the hope that God gives you but you have to give love away.  Love helps to build others up; it can help to lift them from the depths of sadness and despair.  Love builds the family of God here on earth like nothing else we can do.  In the temporal world, love is the greatest because love brings about peace for all.

   In the eternal sense, love is the greatest because love is everlasting.  Love is the only thing we will take into our eternal life with Christ.  We will no longer need faith because we will be living and seeing Jesus.  Faith is being certain of what we do not see; we will see Jesus face to face.  We will talk with him and listen to him and share his banquet feast with him; we won’t need faith.

   We also will not have to hope for the promise because the promise has been fulfilled.  We won’t have to hope for it to come because it is present.  All we will take with us and, like the Beatles sing, all we need is love.  We will live in God’s eternal joyous kingdom, loving all and being loved by all, especially Jesus. 

    So love is the greatest because it is the peace in this life and the everlasting truth in the next.  All we really do need is love.

Gracious Father, you give us three great gifts: faith, hope and love.  Help us to cherish them and to experience them and to live them.  Strengthen our faith, build up our hope and let us love one another as you have loved us.  Be with those who do not experience love.  Move us to love them with a willing heart and spirit.  In the precious and loving name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret