Earlier this week whilst engaging in an enjoyable conversation with Tristan and Amanda over coffee and tea, I had a "revelation" of sorts. An unveiling. You know those nuggets that you hear all too often and have known about the majority of your life but you have never thought about it a certain way that brings it all together? That AHA! moment. All of a sudden sheds light on another layer of it? Well this event transpired for me as Tristan described and expressed 1 Corinthians 13:13 tonight. To lay the foundation I will begin with the verse.
"But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love." 1 Corinthians 13:13
Pretty simple right? Those of us raised in the church like myself have most likely heard this verse repeated many a time and as a result tend to press the zone out button when we hear it recited. But maybe all it takes is a different point of view on it to reinvent it for us, or rather...recapture us. And my experience of re-captivation sprang upon me when I least expected it to.
So lets take this verse into account. The previous context of this verse explains the futility of literally everything else in this life if love is not incorporated as the key fixture. "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging symbol." It's interesting, the meaning behind this entire passage actually exposes the pollutant of the absence of love. Perhaps we tend to think of a pollutant as being something which is added to a situation. That is one of the things that I adore the most about Scripture-it goes completely against the grain of everything this world knows and thinks to be true.
Tristan continues to elaborate on the fact that love is the greatest of all because it is the one that we will be able to use eternally. At first glance, this is an obvious fact to us as believers-of course love is eternal and of course we will be able to practice it forever. But the eye opener for me was the contrast between why it was the greatest of all. Isn't hope pretty strong and crucial? And faith? We cannot live without these things in our life as we know it now. This is when Tristan explains that we will no longer need hope once we are face to face with the One who is the reason we have hope and IS the Reason-He IS hope. Since hope is one of the fundamental facets for Christians in this world of darkness, one of the chief motivations to even keep us striving toward the prize, I had never contemplated the idea of not needing it once we were finally with the one that we have always hoped for. It is a mind blowing comprehension-almost beyond comprehension. What is it going to be like to be in a place where we are finally.....where we want to be? The place where we have waited for so long it seems. Unfathomable.
Secondly, the aspect of faith. Hebrews 11:6 says, "And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him." Clearly, in this life we MUST HAVE FAITH if our endeavor is to please the God that is the reason we hope and are able to attain any faith at all. Hebrews 11:1 also declares, "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." This verse furthers the point that I am working towards-the point that although faith is crucial now in this life...it will not always be. Maybe we will have a different kind of faith once we are Home; but if faith is the belief in what is now unseen, why would we need this same kind of faith when we finally see with our own eyes what we have always had faith in on earth? Thank God that things will not always operate the same ways that things operate now in this oppressed, sin laden world.
So now what is left? We are in the Presence of what we have always hoped for-it is here. We can see with our own eyes what we have had faith in for the mist of our years on earth. "...Each man's life is but a breath." Psalms 39: 5. Love. The greatest of these is love. You really begin to understand WHY the greatest of these is love and why love reigns when you examine the other factors that encompass. Even MORE devastatingly brilliant is the realization of what we will be doing for eternity-loving. Everything will be love-everything will be saturated and centered on and around it because HE IS LOVE. We will be with LOVE HIMSELF.......too deep. Can't handle. So not only will Love last till the end, Love IS OUR END. Except we have no end. We are made eternal beings just as our Maker is. So if we are made in the image of our Creator, who is Love, and we are eternal just as love is eternal...it only stands to reason that WE ARE MADE FOR LOVE. Wrap your head around that-REALLY grasp it.
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