Where Faith and Love Converge – There is Hope

[Original Post September 8, 2011]

Getting ready for the final message in our No Perfect People Allowed Series – the message is titled: Creating a Culture of Hope and Healing. I was led to 1 Corinthians 13 – the love chapter. As I was reading, I caught myself wondering why I was wasting time reading the “love” chapter when I should be preparing for a message on “hope.” Then it hit me…

1 Corinthians 13:13 (the last verse of the great love chapter) “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

Our world needs hope. And where is hope found?

Answer: Where faith and love converge.

Where do faith and love converge?

Answer: The Church (Or, at least, they’re supposed to)…

Why are not more people discovering hope through the community of the church? Perhaps it’s because there’s a lack of either faith or love. Faith forms the foundation for hope, yet hope is experienced in love. Love for God, love for one another. If faith is absent, how far can hope reach? Without faith, there is no hope at all. If love is absent, perhaps the only hope that remains is the hope of being loved. And that’s what we were created for: to love and to be loved.

So, this is the hope of the church – where faith and love converge through the Body of Christ, as we re-present Jesus as His church, people find and experience hope.