Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Cor. 13:7) The Bible tells us that love “hopes all things.” This simply means that true love, biblical love, godly love, is always hopeful. It is always optimistic. True, biblical, and God-honoring love always sees a light at the end of the tunnel, not due to naiveté but because biblical love is birthed by the Holy Spirit and grounded on God’s word. Scripture tells us that “hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Rom. 5:5 NASB). Knowing that the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit is where hope comes from and is what gives us—believers—the hope to press on. Knowing and believing that all of God’s word and all of God’s promises are true and trustworthy, gives us the hope to keep loving. Thus, married couples who love each other with a biblical love, when they are going through a rough patch in their marriage, never give up because they know there is always hope. They know if they hold fast to God’s word, if they mortify the sin that indwells each of them, if they treat one another as the Bible commands them to, there is always hope for a brighter future. Church members who love each other with a biblical love and hold fast to the promises of God and seek to fulfill the Second Great Commandment and the Golden Rule, will always have hope to keep loving each other, serving each other, and moving forward together. Parents who struggle with an unruly and rebellious child, who love their child with a biblical love, will never give up on him or her, knowing that no one is ever beyond the reach of God’s saving grace. Love hopes all things.
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Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Cor. 13:7) The second verb Paul uses to describe what love does is believe. “Love believes all things.” What does that mean? Does that mean love is gullible or naive, that love believes whatever someone else says? Does it mean that loving people believe in the Tooth Fairy or Santa Clause? The Greek word for believe here is the word pisteuō, which you may recognize as the word most commonly translated as faith. For instance, this is the same word we find in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes (pisteuō) in him should not perish but have eternal life.” Thus, what does it mean to believe in Jesus? Are we talking about a mere intellectual accent? Are we talking about simply believing that Jesus exists and is real? Or, are we talking about believing that Jesus really did die on the cross and rise from the dead? Yes, and more, much more. To believe in Jesus is to entrust yourself to him, to trust him, to trust him with your life, to believe in him and to believe him. Thus, the Greek word carries the meaning of “as having confidence in what is spoken or written, give credence to, think to be true, having confidence in a person.” In other words, when we love someone, we believe them; we trust them; we think the best of them; we give them the benefit of the doubt. This is so important in our social media world. So often we read what someone posts on Facebook or sends out through Twitter and we assume the worst of them. We impute negative motives to that person or believe they are directing their post toward us or at people like us. We assume we know what they are implying, and we read between the lines. Or, when someone does not return an email or a text or respond to or comment on a social media post, we assume they are ignoring us. “Surely they’ve seen my text or post!” we think to ourselves. But maybe they haven’t. Maybe they’re busy. Maybe what they've posted on the internet does not mean what you think it means. Love believes all things. Love believes the best in others. Love gives others the benefit of the doubt.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Cor. 13:7) What does it mean that love “bears” all things or that love “believes” all things? Does this mean that love is gullible or naive, believing anything we are told? What does it mean that love “endures” all things? Today, and over the next three days, I want to briefly look at each of these words because these words are important and are rich with meaning. But also because today many people, many Christians, have a fundamental misunderstanding of what true love is, what biblical love is. Thus, the first verb in this sentence describing what love does or how love behaves is that “love bears all things.” The Greek word for “bears” is the word stegō, and it carries the meaning of ‘to cover, to pass over in silence, or to keep confidential.’ Thus, when scripture says that love bears all things, it means that love is willing to overlook the flaws and shortcomings of others. Peter uses similar language when he says, “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Pet. 4:8). Love is being willing to be honest with ourselves and say to someone we love, ‘I know you’re not perfect, but neither am I. I know you have many flaws and sins, but so do I. And because neither one of us has cornered the market on perfection, I’m going to overlook, I’m going to pass over your sins and love you anyway.’ This does not mean that we don’t hold each other accountable for sin, because that is what love does. Love always wants and does what is best for someone else, so when we see our brother or sister in Christ sinning, we gently try and correct them (Gal. 6:1). But love never gives up on people. Love never grows tired of forgiving. Love does not seek to hold others to a standard that we can’t even live up to ourselves. Charles Spurgeon, the early 19th century preacher, once said, “Why do you grow frustrated when you cannot make others as you would want them to be when you cannot even make yourself as you want to be?”
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