Today we are going to do a short review of the first three “Wonderful Words of Life.”
Faith: Faith is akin to humility, because faith believes that there is Some One or Some Thing outside of us Who watches over us and determines our future. Ephesians 2:8 declares that “by grace we are saved through faith, and this is not our own doing, it is the gift of God.” In Hebrews 11:1 we read, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” In Romans 10:9 the apostle writes, “If you confess with your lips that ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your hearts that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” In the New Testament Faith is always in the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who gave him up for us all, to die for our sins, then raised him from death that we too might walk in newness of life.
Love: In 1st Corinthians 13 we find the perfect definition of love.
4 Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful, 5 it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
In Romans 13, St. Paul says:
9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this sentence, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
Hope: In Romans 5 St. Paul says that “…we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God.” In Romans 8 he says that “if we hope for what we do not see (the resurrection and glorification of our bodies that they might be like glorious body)we wait for it with patience.” Not only do we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God, we rejoice that the God who has promised us Eternal Life has also promised to hear our prayers. God knows what we need before we ask him. Dr. James S. Stewart once said:
The central business of preaching to day is to tell men and women (boys and girls) that the same power that took Jesus out of the tomb is available to us also, not just in the hour of our death, but in the midst of life.
“So faith, hope, love abide, these three, but the greatest of these in love.” 1st Corinthians 13:13