Love hopes all things (v.7)

“Love hopes all things.” 1 Corinthians 13:7

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Hope in the Bible is not about wishful thinking or having an optimistic outlook – hope is rather the assurance that what God has promised will come to pass, even though we have to wait for its fulfilment. Despite our disappointments and struggles, because of our love of God we have a future hope that looks beyond our present sufferings.

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Paul himself knew great hardship and difficulty (e.g. 2 Cor.11:23-25). Yet he saw no contradiction between that and having hope – in fact, he describes hope as one of the outcomes of our sufferings. The reason he is so sure of this is that God has poured his love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit (Rom.5:4-5). The Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives is a foretaste of heaven, when all wrongs will be put right.

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This future hope gives us a solid foundation in all our present struggles. It’s a hope which can never fail, because it’s based on the promise of God that for the Christian the best is yet to be. The Holy Spirit is the first-fruits of that hope, with us now not only as an assurance of it but also as the enabler of the fruit of love in our lives.