The Beatles Were Right
The Beatles were really on to something. It appears that all we need IS love. I’m getting ahead of myself, so let me back up.
Sometimes I find that I’ve read the same Bible verse over and over without really thinking about it. One example is 1 Corinthians 13:13…But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love. It’s the last verse in the famous ‘love chapter’. Lots of people know what it says, but I’m not sure most of us have given it a second thought.
Here’s something that had never occurred to me: at some point in the future, we’ll have no use for either faith or hope. It’s so simple that I passed right by it, over and over again: faith and hope are temporary.
When this life is over, and when we’ve been ushered into God’s presence, we’ll have no more need for faith or hope. Paul talked about this in the previous verse when he said “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.
The only one of those three that will remain? Love. As Andrew Peterson puts it:
I say faith is a burden
it’s a weight to bear
it’s brave and bittersweet
and hope is hard to hold, too…
Lord, I believe — only help my unbelief…
’til there’s no more faith
and no more hope
and I see your face and, Lord, I’m home
and only Love remains.
Thanks, Andrew…for reminding me to look more closely as I read. Love really IS all we need…or, at least, it’s all we’ll have left in the end.