Three words can change our life: faith, hope, and love. Individually, there is nothing quite like any of them. Together, they can revolutionize your world and the world.
The old man sits in his chair. He alternates between watching television and looking out the window. His health is failing. He feels forgotten. His life has been long and pretty good. But it’s about over. Faith teaches him the best is still to come.
The young man is waiting in line in the cafeteria at work. Even though the choice in front of him is turkey or tuna, he can’t get over the conversation he and his wife had the previous night. She doesn’t know if she wants to be married or not. His heart is broken. He worries about their baby boy. He doesn’t have a clue what the future holds. Hope whispers to him, that tomorrow can be better than today.
The woman has messed up in so many ways. She walks down a tree-covered trail and wonders what is next for her, if anything. As a child she dreamed that life would be so much more than this. The world tells her that she has made her bed and she needs to lie in it. Love lets her remember that acceptance, forgiveness, and restoration can still happen.
Faith is being sure of what we hope for and being convicted of something we can’t see. It is a verb and not a noun. It is a journey and not a destination. Nothing of absolute significance in life can be proven. I can’t prove my wife loves me. I can’t prove love is better than hate. I can’t prove that resurrection follows death. So God gives us faith so we can have absolute significance.
Hope is the expectation that tomorrow can be better than today. For Christians our hope is Jesus. Despite the fact that brokenness, death, and sin seem to rule the world, our hope is that Jesus actually conquered them, and because he conquered them, we are and will be liberated from them as well.
Love is the most powerful force in the world. No human heart is exempt from the power of love. Simultaneously, love is powerless as it can do nothing except by agreement. Paul describes it better than anybody: it’s patient, kind, forgiving, and trusting. Love has a lot more to do with the character of the person loving than the worthiness of the object being loved. It is something you do rather than something you feel. No better example of love exists than Jesus—the one who gave his life for his friends.
So we can let the revolution begin in our world and then the world. And the best place to begin is with faith, hope, and love.
The best it yet to come…
Craig
The old man sits in his chair. He alternates between watching television and looking out the window. His health is failing. He feels forgotten. His life has been long and pretty good. But it’s about over. Faith teaches him the best is still to come.
The young man is waiting in line in the cafeteria at work. Even though the choice in front of him is turkey or tuna, he can’t get over the conversation he and his wife had the previous night. She doesn’t know if she wants to be married or not. His heart is broken. He worries about their baby boy. He doesn’t have a clue what the future holds. Hope whispers to him, that tomorrow can be better than today.
The woman has messed up in so many ways. She walks down a tree-covered trail and wonders what is next for her, if anything. As a child she dreamed that life would be so much more than this. The world tells her that she has made her bed and she needs to lie in it. Love lets her remember that acceptance, forgiveness, and restoration can still happen.
Faith is being sure of what we hope for and being convicted of something we can’t see. It is a verb and not a noun. It is a journey and not a destination. Nothing of absolute significance in life can be proven. I can’t prove my wife loves me. I can’t prove love is better than hate. I can’t prove that resurrection follows death. So God gives us faith so we can have absolute significance.
Hope is the expectation that tomorrow can be better than today. For Christians our hope is Jesus. Despite the fact that brokenness, death, and sin seem to rule the world, our hope is that Jesus actually conquered them, and because he conquered them, we are and will be liberated from them as well.
Love is the most powerful force in the world. No human heart is exempt from the power of love. Simultaneously, love is powerless as it can do nothing except by agreement. Paul describes it better than anybody: it’s patient, kind, forgiving, and trusting. Love has a lot more to do with the character of the person loving than the worthiness of the object being loved. It is something you do rather than something you feel. No better example of love exists than Jesus—the one who gave his life for his friends.
So we can let the revolution begin in our world and then the world. And the best place to begin is with faith, hope, and love.
The best it yet to come…
Craig
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