119. Faith, Hope, Love Abide
1 Corinthians 13:13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
Faith, Hope, and Love will last longest and all these will be abide permanently. All the gifts, blessings and tokens from God to His people on the earth are wonderful, but they are temporary, designed only for this life. Technically, faith and hope will not last for eternity either, since neither will be needed in the eternal new heaven and new earth. We will have sight and substance; we will experience the reality of God in physical presence. Faith and hope actually pass away; they are no longer necessary.
Love, however, endures forever and lasts for eternity. Love will be seen and felt and experienced in all its depth and fullness. This is why charity (love) is the greatest. Almost all human beings experience love. All believers in Christ experience the love of God. But we have to pray to have the strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. The deep experience of the love of God will be thrilling and overwhelming and certainly indescribable. One common denominator described by those who have had near death experiences is their inability to adequately describe the love of Jesus.
We don’t need a near death experience to know the inexpressible love of God, for it is granted to faith by the Holy Spirit through the hearing of the Gospel. It is enough to make us yearn for and pine for the eternal and majestic presence of God. We know that the love of God will be experienced in all its fullness and awe, and in the presence of God’s Love nothing else will matter. We have this promise: the greatest is love. We hold on to that hope, as a real substance, until hope is no longer needed.