Faith, Hope and Love
Since before Christmas I have been intending to write this blog post but for some reason I just never sat down to do it. I am still not sure how it will pan out as I am partially using the post to help me make sense of these thoughts.
After thinking for a while I believe that these thoughts have grown from a simple prayer of 'teach me how to love.' I was reading the verse 1 Corinthians 13:13 'and now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.' and it struck me that every other time I had read this verse I had focussed on the last part, as quite naturally it states, the greatest of these three is love, but what about the other two?
Faith- I have to give John some credit for this point as it was partially down to him that got me thinking about faith, although it did compliment some things I had been thinking about anyway. After reflecting upon different perspectives of faith, the churches in this country appear to have built up a Theology of defeatism surrounding unanswered prayer, particularly around the subject of healing. I even had a conversation just this week with a man regarding healing and prayer and how he often has trouble when praying for people with terminal illnesses as in the end death will come. Now I must make a point here that I do not wish to upset anyone who has lost a loved one due to an illness, despite countless hours of prayers, by saying they did not have enough faith, that's the last thing I want to do here.
In the past week my mind has been drawn to the fact that a large proportion of the Christians I have come across (and myself included until this point hopefully) have often viewed faith as having once attained faith in Christ, it is there and nothing else is really required from it. After all, faith as small as a mustard seed is able to move mountains. But what I have realised, even if it seems blindingly obvious now, is that although the mustard seed starts off tiny, when planted and grown it grows into one of the largest bushes. This analogy has been used multiple times throughout my childhood and youth, but it is only now that I have begun to see the implications that this could cause if applied correctly. In the same way as the mustard seed, our first seed of faith that brings us to a relationship with Christ should be planted; we should nurture it in good soil and allow it to grow so much more than we first thought was ever possible.
I have been contemplating Jesus' statement that we will be able to do infinitely more than the disciples ever saw him doing and it has left me wondering why we aren't seeing that in our churches today? It leads me to wonder if we have left our faith go un-nurtured for so long and how many miraculous works could have been done if we had cultivated our faith to the point that every one who entered the presence of Christians would be instantly healed.
In part it brings my mind to some of the lyrics of the old hymn 'What a friend we have in Jesus'
After thinking for a while I believe that these thoughts have grown from a simple prayer of 'teach me how to love.' I was reading the verse 1 Corinthians 13:13 'and now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.' and it struck me that every other time I had read this verse I had focussed on the last part, as quite naturally it states, the greatest of these three is love, but what about the other two?
Faith- I have to give John some credit for this point as it was partially down to him that got me thinking about faith, although it did compliment some things I had been thinking about anyway. After reflecting upon different perspectives of faith, the churches in this country appear to have built up a Theology of defeatism surrounding unanswered prayer, particularly around the subject of healing. I even had a conversation just this week with a man regarding healing and prayer and how he often has trouble when praying for people with terminal illnesses as in the end death will come. Now I must make a point here that I do not wish to upset anyone who has lost a loved one due to an illness, despite countless hours of prayers, by saying they did not have enough faith, that's the last thing I want to do here.
In the past week my mind has been drawn to the fact that a large proportion of the Christians I have come across (and myself included until this point hopefully) have often viewed faith as having once attained faith in Christ, it is there and nothing else is really required from it. After all, faith as small as a mustard seed is able to move mountains. But what I have realised, even if it seems blindingly obvious now, is that although the mustard seed starts off tiny, when planted and grown it grows into one of the largest bushes. This analogy has been used multiple times throughout my childhood and youth, but it is only now that I have begun to see the implications that this could cause if applied correctly. In the same way as the mustard seed, our first seed of faith that brings us to a relationship with Christ should be planted; we should nurture it in good soil and allow it to grow so much more than we first thought was ever possible.
I have been contemplating Jesus' statement that we will be able to do infinitely more than the disciples ever saw him doing and it has left me wondering why we aren't seeing that in our churches today? It leads me to wonder if we have left our faith go un-nurtured for so long and how many miraculous works could have been done if we had cultivated our faith to the point that every one who entered the presence of Christians would be instantly healed.
In part it brings my mind to some of the lyrics of the old hymn 'What a friend we have in Jesus'
'O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer'
In the same way that a seed once planted requires watering, pruning, clearing from weeds and at times replanting, before it grows into its true potential, so we must nurture our faith. We can't expect to hold a seed of faith and instantly see it grow to the stage where we're performing miracles at every opportunity. Instead we must water and feed our faith, ensure that we are in good soil, not strangled by weeds and allowing our roots to go deep. It takes work, perseverance, prayer, reading and applying the scriptures into our life, allowing for weeds to be cleared through correction and change and so on. So often we settle when we see a flower or two without allowing for the plant to grow further. I think we forget the fact that we were told that were are able to do infinitely more than we could begin to imagine, and settle for the seemingly attainable. But is that not what faith is? Believing that we can, through the power of God, perform and see the seemingly unattainable?
Hope- Having just written the above, it seems right to me that hope should come second. We can imagine what it would be like to have faith but how do we get there? The whole idea of how we can get to the point where we have so much faith, the Lord is able to use us for miraculous works at every opportunity he needs us to, seems far in the future as it requires work, it is easy to put it off and give up hope. But hope is what we need. To have hope is one of the most powerful things you can posses. I believe that in every situation, if you continue to hope you have a power to overcome everything. Referring back to the conversation I had with the man, perhaps if we had more hope that there is life in abundance after healing, we would then move out in more faith to pray for the healing in the first place. Perhaps if we had the hope that our prayers for the sick would be instantly answered with a resounding yes, then we would begin to nurture our seeds of faith until the flowers grow into fruit and just keep multiplying. It has been seen before, that miraculous healings become a norm in revival settings, and even today in places like Bethel, in Redding California, where it is seen as the norm for people to walk into the room and be healed by God's power. These happened through faith and hope.
After all this, the final and the greatest thing that is to remain is love. What would be the point in having a faith that can see the dead raised to life if it was not acted upon in love? Why should we hope if not hoping in an attitude of love? But perhaps before we can learn to love perfectly, we need to work on our faith and hope. I am not sure if I have fully explained all that is in my mind, or even begun to do justice to the passion I am feeling about this topic but it is a start! I wonder what could be seen if we only nurtured our faith? x
Hope- Having just written the above, it seems right to me that hope should come second. We can imagine what it would be like to have faith but how do we get there? The whole idea of how we can get to the point where we have so much faith, the Lord is able to use us for miraculous works at every opportunity he needs us to, seems far in the future as it requires work, it is easy to put it off and give up hope. But hope is what we need. To have hope is one of the most powerful things you can posses. I believe that in every situation, if you continue to hope you have a power to overcome everything. Referring back to the conversation I had with the man, perhaps if we had more hope that there is life in abundance after healing, we would then move out in more faith to pray for the healing in the first place. Perhaps if we had the hope that our prayers for the sick would be instantly answered with a resounding yes, then we would begin to nurture our seeds of faith until the flowers grow into fruit and just keep multiplying. It has been seen before, that miraculous healings become a norm in revival settings, and even today in places like Bethel, in Redding California, where it is seen as the norm for people to walk into the room and be healed by God's power. These happened through faith and hope.
After all this, the final and the greatest thing that is to remain is love. What would be the point in having a faith that can see the dead raised to life if it was not acted upon in love? Why should we hope if not hoping in an attitude of love? But perhaps before we can learn to love perfectly, we need to work on our faith and hope. I am not sure if I have fully explained all that is in my mind, or even begun to do justice to the passion I am feeling about this topic but it is a start! I wonder what could be seen if we only nurtured our faith? x
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