Wednesday 16 December 2015

Faith, Love and Hope

Faith is trust in God.

Trust is justified because of God's Love for us.

God loves us personally because he is our Father.

Hope comes from knowing that God, our loving Father, is also the Creator.

6 comments:

Nathaniel said...

Does faith or love come first? Does one love our Heavenly Father out of faith, or have faith out of love?

Bruce Charlton said...

@N - This was to show the relationship between the three, and to explain the meaning of Faith - not to put them in order of priority (in which case Love would need to come first).

The Crow said...

Faith: behaving as if something is as you wish it were, when you don't know it is.
Love: leaving its object to be whatever it is, without your interference.
Hope: the default position of the powerless.

Bruce Charlton said...

@Crow - That's perhaps the opposite of actually *having* faith (the kind that moves mountains)...

The Crow said...

That's why I don't have faith, Bruce.
With God everywhere, in everything, clearly visible, all the time, it's hardly relevant.
Anyway, I'm not in the mountain-moving business: I leave that sort of thing to God.

Bruce Charlton said...

@Crow - Same words - different meanings - therefore not the same.

God is everywhere in general, but also a personage and somewhere in particular.

But we can choose to acknowledge God as a person, and to have a personal relationship with God; Or Not: He does not force Himself upon us.

But He is there if sought; and like all loving Fathers, He yearns always for the loving and endless creativity of relationship with His children.