Love Bears, Believes, Hopes, Endures

“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”

—1 Corinthians 13:7-8a (NRSV)

What are we without love? We are without hope or reason to live. Love is the essence of life. Love never loses faith and never loses hope. Love is never overcome. Rather, love overcomes.

Love Bears All Things

Love puts up with anything—but this in not meant in terms of abuse and neglect. No, love can strengthen our resolve to put up with anything that is godly; to put up with the strains of: financial worries, disabled children, geriatric parents, relational conflict, the loss of loved ones, and many other forms of suffering known within normal life.

Because love bears all things it gives us the ability to bounce back from setbacks.

When we can bear all things we don’t give up easily.

Love Believes All Things

Love supplies the tools, the capacity, and the wherewithal for the faith. Faith can be pushed all the way, with limitless capacity, so long as it is underpinned in the perfection of love. It imbues peace.

With such a thing compelling us in life, we see people in a positive light, and the benefit of the doubt is our preference, not that we are easily fooled. But we want to believe in the goodness and sanctity of life.

With limitless faith we can do almost anything in life.

Love Hopes All Things

This is similar to the above. With infinite facility, hope fuels belief and energises our capacity to believe.

When we think of never giving up, we think of never losing hope. Even when hope is distant, perhaps for a time invisible, there is sufficient hope to believe hope will return. Hope never needs to be visible. Hope can transcend the human need of sight in order to see the way.

When we have hope that endures all things we have love abiding.

Love Endures All Things

With the ability for longsuffering, love’s patience attests to the virtuous strength that the Spirit of God supplies. Love’s endurance glorifies God.

When we love in ways to endure, longer and longer, never giving up, we also attest to this strength in love that empowers our endurance. With love we can remain.

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In love, is power to put up with what seems impossible, to grow, to believe the incredible and see, to hope beyond sight and believe, and to endure many more things than we think we can endure. Love transcends failure. It never ends.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.