0338. 332. Faith, Love, and Hope

332. Faith, Love, and Hope

1Th_1:3

The earliest of the Epistles is that written to the Church in Thessalonica, and in it we find all the truths of the Gospel, and how those truths affected the lives of the members of the Christian fraternity.

1. An Active Believer. “Your work of faith” (1Th_1:3). Faith is the Spirit’s act and attitude towards the Lord. The act puts us in touch and relation to Him—Joh_1:12, and the attitude is the continuance of trust and obedience—Col_2:6. A workless faith is a worthless one. Faith in Christ is more than believing what He says is true, it is the grace that brings us into vital union with Him, and through the life He communicates we are able to do what He wishes and bids.

2. An Inspired Worker. “Labour of love” (Col_2:3). The labour here signifies hard work, toil. The word is rendered “weariness” in 2Co_11:27, and a relative word is given “toiled,” in referring to the disciples who “toiled all the night” in fishing (Luk_5:5). How many of us have ween “wearied” (same word as “toiled,” Joh_4:6) in working for the Lord?

But what a toil toil is, if we only toil! Hence the importance of having love coupled with labour. Some of us will never have “LL.D.” to our name; but we may have “L.L.”—that is, “Loving Labourer.” When love moves and moulds us, we move to purpose, and although we may be tired in toil, we will never be tired of toil, Carlyle says: “Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness. He has a work, a life-purpose; he has found it, and will follow it.”

3. An Enduring Looker. “Patience of hope” (Joh_4:3). Endurance is the meaning of patience. The word and its cognates are rendered “endurance” (see the six references in the Epistle to the Hebrews, Joh_10:32, Joh_10:36; Joh_12:1-2, Joh_12:3, Joh_12:7), and mean not merely passiveness, but actively keeping on and not giving in, like Christ, who “endured the Cross” and “contradiction,” and also, like the runner in the race, who keeps on till he reaches the goal. The drawing power which enables the believer to continue is the “hope” of the Lord’s return. When “hope” is in the objective it always refers to the Lord’s Coming for His people.

All these graces find their centre and circumference in the “Lord Jesus Christ,” and live “in the sight,” or presence, “of God and our Father.”

By: DR. F. E. MARSH