But there is life in these things that will never run out! Some may feel concerned at the thought of knowing what the end goal is, that perhaps there is no point to life if there is nothing left to discover. If faith, hope, and love are the things that last forever, it becomes clear that these are the things we should pursue with our lives. It is the engine that drives our spiritual lives.įaith, Hope, and Love: The Perpetual Cycle of Life He says, “ Whoever believes in me will also do the works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father.” Love has the power to help us believe again and restore hope in others. Second, it is the very power that allows us to do the work of Jesus and even greater works as Jesus described in John 14:12. It tells us who God is and who we are in God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” It goes on to say in verse 19 that “ we love because God first loved us.” So the purpose of love is twofold. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. It states, “ Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.

The purpose of love is evident in 1 John 4:7-8 that it is the clearest picture of God that we have. If you understand the goal, you can use what you have to get there. How wonderful is it to understand the goal! When you start a new game, the biggest hurdle is often obtaining an understanding more than physical limitations. Based on this, we know that love is the result that we see of our faith and our hope. Paul makes it very clear in 1 Corinthians 13:13 that the greatest of all spiritual gifts is love. It says, “ Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.” Jesus is our leader and we should follow his lead by constantly seeking wisdom and relationship with others. In Luke 2:52 we get a subtle, yet powerful, picture of Jesus’ character that reveals the foundation of his influence and confidence. As we seek more, we learn more, and we store up confidence in who we are on the vine. At each level we should be graduating, moving, and growing, constantly adding to what we understand. It is a great thing to be grateful, but there is more for your life when you continually seek wisdom. Often in our spiritual development, we hit a place of complacency where we are good with what we have. If you find it, you will have a bright future, and your hopes will not be cut short.” Jesus is our model of constantly seeking wisdom. Proverbs 24:14 says, “ In the same way, wisdom is sweet to your soul. The way that faith, which is the seeking of the Lord, connects with hope, which is the expectation of finding Him, is through wisdom. Hope is the fuel that keeps faith alive in our quest to find love. Hope is defined by Google as “a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.” It can also be defined as “a feeling of trust.” So faith is the belief that there is something better to seek, while hope is the expectation, or the certainty, that it is there. Ten years later, the tattoos are still there, but I gained the most valuable lesson from this experience. “Why! I truly believe you could take this from me! Why won’t you do it!?” I was hurt. I did this patiently for months before I started to lose hope and I began weeping to God. I genuinely believed these Scriptures to be that I had the power and authority to believe something “as hard as I could” and it would be done, even if it meant defying the physical realm.

In the shower I would see these tattoos and “wipe” them away along with a faithful prayer. I was barely 18 years old and working through some missed opportunities of my own personal development. I remember about a year after getting tattooed experiencing deep regret, almost mourning a part of myself being lost. It often starts with the quote from Jesus in Luke 17:6 where He says, “ If you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘May you be uprooted and thrown into the sea,’ and it would obey you!” Hebrews 11:1 gives this clear definition of faith: “ Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.” Faith is one of the first things we learn about as Christians.

Faith hope and love scripture