Never Lose Hope

 

DEVOTION

THE 1^ST LETTER TO THE CORINTHIANS

NEVER LOSE HOPE

 

1 Cor 13:4-7

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, 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.

NIV

What does it mean that love always hopes? What we find in the Greek gives us this idea of expectation, and in a certain sense a confident expectation, as in our hope in Christ. But how does that relate to our interactions with people? If we love someone then we have hope in them, which could be as we believe in them or we always have the hope they are doing the right thing. Even when it appears the opposite, hope will hold out believing things will turn around, repentance will occur, and this person will come back into right fellowship with the Lord. Because we love, then no one is hopeless, or rather we do not lose hope in them. When we think of how God loves us and that He always has that hope in us, that we will obey him, follow his ways, and continue to walk in the path he has set before us. How sad it would be if God lost hope in us, that he felt we were a hopeless case and simply turn us over to Satan. This makes us think of the letter to the Romans when Paul says that God gave them over to their depraved minds, which is akin to turning them over to Satan. For what reason would He do that. It would seem it was because they refused to acknowledge Him and made idols and did all sorts of wickedness. It would be too much to expound on all that is said in that first chapter of Romans. Still, would that mean that God gave up hope in them? Would that mean he stopped loving them? That is not consistent with his character, although he is just, and his decisions are just. He had a reason for that, and we have to believe it was to show them their wicked ways only harm themselves and hope they will repent. We need to go on in this letter to the Romans to see that we cannot pass that kind of judgment, so then we are only left with loving our neighbor as ourselves, or as we love God. That would then mean, we cannot turn someone over to their sinful mind, but we have to continue to love them and to have hope in them. Because we love them, we can never lose hope.