Love Doctor: Love always hopes

Whew!  I made it back to my task.  Satan is busy; and his business has been keeping me busy.  But, glory be to the most high God that I finally can take a breath and turn my mind once again toward Paul's discourse on love found in 1 Corinthians.

 Here is the text from 1 Corinthians 13.
 ⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
 ⁸ Love never fails.
In the last entry we looked at love and trust.  Basically we said that love, agape love, gives people the benefit of the doubt.  Paul follows his statement about trust by saying that love always hopes, or love Hope all things.

Of all the posts on this topic of love; I believe this is the strongest aspect of agape love as we can apply it to our lives.  Love always hopes!  We know that agape is a type of love that is selfless and giving.  It is a mirror of the way God loves us.  We cannot ever repay God for his love, yet he gives it freely and abundantly to all of us. 

What about hope?  Hope means to expect with confidence.  As Christians we know we serve a God that is immutable and omnipotent.  He does not change and he has the ability to do all he says he will do.  Those two attributes, when joined together give us hope that every one of over 3,000 promises made in the Bible will be fulfilled concerning those that have repented and believed in the Lord Jesus Christ.  It is from this place that we can begin to draw upon the hope that we have in Christ; the hope of glory!

So, our agape love must manifest itself in both an inward expectation with confidence, and an outward display of hope.  This is not hope in ourselves, but hope that God will do what he said he will do.   

One author wrote this about hope:

* "When we are trapped in a tunnel of misery, hope points to the light at the end.
* When we are overworked and exhausted, hope gives us fresh energy.
* When we are discouraged, hope lifts our spirits.
* When we are tempted to quit, hope keeps us going.
* When we lose our way and confusion blurs our destination, hope dulls the edge of panic.
* When we struggle with a crippling disease or a lingering illness, hope helps us persevere beyond the pain.
* When we fear the worst, hope brings reminders that God is still in control.
* When we must endure the consequences of bad decisions, hope fuels our recovery.
* When we find ourselves in financial difficulty, hope tells us that we still have a future.
* When we are forced to sit back and wait, hope gives us the patience to trust.
* When we feel rejected and abandoned, hope reminds us we're not alone...we'll make it.
* When we say our final farewell to someone we love, hope in the life beyond gets us through our grief."

(Charles R. Swindoll, Hope Again: When Life Hurts and Dreams Fade, pp.xi,xii)

Brothers and sisters Satan will try his level best (remember he has been practicing his craft since the beginning) to discourage us.  When we are doing well in one area, Satan will attack us somewhere us.  When we are praying without ceasing, Satan will cause us to be too busy to pray for a season.  When we get a promotion at work, Satan will attack a spouse or a parent, or a child.

At a relationship level, Satan will bring confusion and chaos into our relationships with our loved ones in our home and in our church.  He will attempt to bring division through his lies and deceit.  He will bring devastation through addiction to drugs, alcohol, or pornography.  It is during these times that Paul says we must have hope that God has a plan and that plan will come to pass.

 Romans 8:28
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. 

Hope allows us to persevere.  It causes us to be able to praise God when things are hard.  It allows us to wait on the Lord and pray through every unfavorable circumstance with confident expectation.