Three Sisters

And now abides faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

I Corinthians 13:13

What do faith, hope, and love have in common and how do they differ?  As Paul closes his chapter on love, he declares that faith, hope and love abide and that the greatest of these is love.  What is faith?  According to Hebrews 11:1, ‘faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.’  Faith is believing, as concrete fact, that which we have not yet seen.  By comparison, hope is the certain expectation that what God has promised, He will deliver.  Love is the gracious disposition we have toward Christ which is the response to the love which He has had to us.  This love comes forth in action toward those whom Christ brings across our path as ‘the least of these my brethren.’  Love proceeds arm-in-arm with her two sisters, faith and hope.  Love is the greatest of the three because it is love which does the most practical good to show Christ in the world.  None of these three sisters lives independently of the other two.  Each of them has a contribution to make to us who are Christ’s.  Thus we have faith in the Person of Christ, hope in the work of Christ, and, love toward the whole of Christ, both in the head, as well as the Body.  So, faith, hope, and love abide, the three sisters of Christian grace.

Our Good and Gracious God,
we rejoice that all virtue flows from You.
We praise You that as we are in Christ,
and wrought upon by Your Holy Spirit
we learn to live out these virtues.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning