Patient Faith – Enduring Hope – Unfailing Love
“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” - 1 Corinthians 13:13
“…The greatest of these is love”, because love is the foundation of our patient faith and the enduring hope we have in Jesus Christ.
Unfailing love is what makes patient faith and enduring hope possible. If it were not for the unfailing love that God shows to us every day we would be a wreck in this world. God’s love makes every day worth living, it makes every challenge we face minuscule, and it is the foundation of the forgiveness He continually blesses us with. God’s love is an abundant love that permeates our hearts and our minds when we give our life to Him. As we draw closer to Him, His love will pour out through our actions like water from a fresh spring. God’s love is amazing and eternal! With unfailing love we can experience how He works patient faith and enduring hope into our lives. Unfailing love will become the essence of who we are and how we live if we completely dedicate our lives to living it out.
Unfailing love is the hardest characteristics as a Christian to possess. Not only is it impossible for us to love perfectly, but love is comprised of all the other characteristics we are to carry. Without the proper love we cannot correctly live out our faith. To have faith that is alive we need to live it out through our actions. If we do not show love through our actions then we aren’t fulfilling our call! God wants us to live a life of love not only with Him, but also for Him. This is not easy at all because sin is constantly pumped out of every form of media and is the very nature we are born into. Living out unfailing love is by far the greatest task in our lives, but is totally worth it! Even though we are surrounded by sin and are tempted daily, we need to have confidence and fight for love.
“But you, man of God, flee from all this and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, LOVE, endurance and gentleness.” - 1st Timothy 6:11
Notice the wording in this verse; we aren’t supposed to just seek and find those things we are to “pursue” and practice them! This world is not a big ball of love, but a world in hurt desperately in need of unfailing love! For me this attitude of unfailing love stirs up a strong desire to understand and fight for this form of love.
Jesus laid forth the perfect example of unfailing love when He so humbly died on the cross. Not even death stopped Him from loving us! Unfailing love is a love that never ceases to stop pouring out its joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, selflessness and patience. It is never ending; no matter what it is constantly there serving out of humility!
“Your attitude should be the same as that of Jesus Christ: Who being in the very nature of a servant did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man humbled Himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross.” – Philippians 2:5-8
Wow, that is tough love, which is unfailing love! He became obedient to the worst kind of death! How far would we go to love someone? How much would we be willing to sacrifice our life to show unfailing love to those around us? We talk about giving up our life for those we love, but when faced with the decision to die for someone we don’t love would we really do it? I think some of us would hesitate. What are we willing to sacrifice in our life to remain true to God’s unfailing love?
“As the father loved me, so I have loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in His love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” – John 15:9-13
The greatest love is unfailing love! It’s a love that is capable and willing to die for others. It is a love that always puts self aside and embraces others. It is a love that shines and radiates the amazing power of God. John says, “greater love has no one than this that he lay down his life for his friends.” I don’t believe that we are called to just die for our friends or the ones we love most. I think we are also called to unceasingly love those who don’t love us. (Mathew 5:43-48) Jesus not only died for His friends, but for His eternal enemies. That is powerful love! To love people regardless of anything is an extreme and radical love. Love isn’t just dying for others though, the love we live needs to be a willingness to die for Christ as well. Our love for Him needs to override all other personal desires to live! Our service to our God is the main priority we need to have. We can hesitate to dye for our king, it needs to be an instant reflex in our faith!
“Love is patient, love is kind. I does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always perseveres, and always hopes. Love never fails.”
- 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a
Love like this is beautiful! It is something I deeply desire to imitate. This kind of love is not something that is easy to achieve or even achievable on our own. It is only possible for us to achieve this kind of love if God is the center of all that we are. When we allow God to truly live with in our heart, when we surrender all that we are to be all that He wants us to be, His love will radiate through us! We will become the living example of Jesus’ love and people will see and thirst for the same love. Our love will be seen in our friendships, in our relationships, in the way we talk, in the way we interact with others. The love that God longs to radiate through us is one that never stops shining. We need to daily strive to focus on loving as Christ loved us.
Love is hard, but not impossible. Unfailing love is the foundation to having patient faith and enduring hope and it is only possible through our Savior Jesus Christ! I really want to challenge you to think about all three of these characteristics. Do you have patient faith, enduring hope and unfailing love? What is keeping you from completely surrendering everything to Christ Jesus? He loves you so much! Jesus LOVED you through every whip lash He received, He loved you as He took every single excruciating step of pain to the cross…..Jesus loved you through pain and death and no matter what will always love you!
“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved.” – Ephesians 2:4-5
He is longing for you to turn around and stop where you are and come to Him. He wants you to walk in the footsteps He has laid out for you. He wants to live in you and make you shine for Him! No matter what we do or how many times we fall He will always be there for us. God is amazing because God is love…..Unfailing love!
“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” – 1 Corinthians 13:13
WONDERFUL!