And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13:13

Last June, a pastor and his wife from New Zealand were guest speakers at our church and I was very touched by their story. Both David and Greta Peters had suffered tragedies throughout their lifetimes but brought the message of God’s hope, learned by trusting in the promises of the Bible. From David’s cancer, to his first wife’s painful disease of multiple sclerosis and eventually death, and Greta’s first husband’s sudden death, they both learned firsthand to trust God more than their circumstances.

This week I was reading through David Peters’ book, Hope. How fitting it seems under the present circumstances to remember the hope we have in Jesus. From the book, I loved the below analogy David gave for hope, faith, and love together. These three Christian elements are greatly intertwined.

Our family is very used to travelling by aeroplane from London Heathrow to San Francisco International. Aerodynamics, a plane, and fuel make sense to get us there. That’s my physical route home to see my parents. Similarly by believing in Jesus’ death and resurrection, I need faith, hope, and love to get me spiritually home.

The kids and I were working on art projects and I was inspired to make some encouraging artwork to put in our bay window. As people are putting teddy bears and pictures of rainbows up for people to see as they walk by, I wanted to contribute. The first photo shows how it turned out with the words of faith, hope, and love on rainbow backgrounds.

We always thank God for all of you, mentioning you in our prayers. We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labour prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Thessalonians 1:2-3

Wherever your circumstances find you this Easter season, open up your heart to what God is teaching you. Rarely can we understand in the moment why something is allowed or what the value is in something difficult or negative, however beneath the surface of it all, God is changing our hearts to be more like His own. Let’s pray:

Dear Heavenly Father,

We praise you for your magnificent creation and that you chose to love us despite our disobedience. Thank you for sending Jesus to die for us even while we were still sinners. (Romans 5:8) Your love is beyond measure and as we remember Jesus’ suffering and death so many years ago, we are humbled at the sacrifice paid.

We look forward to celebrating Jesus’ resurrection on Easter, as a reminder that death and challenging circumstances are not the end of Your story. May we continue to place our faith in You, hope in our eternal futures with You forever, as well as embrace Your love and extend it to others.

Faith, hope, love. May these three always endure in our hearts, as we journey with you day by day.

Amen.

We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints — the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel that has come to you.

Colossians 1:3-6