“(Love) bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” 1 Corinthians 13:7
What does love do in this verse? Consider the four verbs.
Love BEARS all things. Love covers, as in excuses with grace (the grace Jesus gives His followers), the errors and faults of others. Jesus modeled forgiving everyone over and over again. He taught we are to forgive 70 times 7 times—perfect perfection, basically. We show our love by excusing errors and faults and don’t hold a grudge or wish for vengeance. We take Jesus’ example and apply it to our lives, so that we are gracious to people who err or with whom we’d be inclined to judge as being at fault.
Love BELIEVES all things. This is more than having absolute faith in Jesus. Jesus knew that because of sin, humanity was marred. He never gave up on humanity. Jesus believed we could be good again, but only through His power. He was not unaware of the greed and deceit Judas was capable of (We are each capable of sin.), yet He knew when people believe in Him for salvation, they are capable of doing and being good. This is the kind of belief in people love has, according to Paul. Love, God’s agape love in us, because of the Holy Spirit living in us, enacted by us believes can change. We believe by Salvation through Jesus that sinner and/or one who torments us can be good. Our faith should look forward to what a person can be, just like how we are changing for good because Jesus saved us. Like love BEARING, BELIEVING a person can be good comes from Jesus. He died because He knew people could and would be changed by belief in Him. We know the person has some goodness in him/her because of the hope we have in that person’s possibility of salvation. We can’t save the person, but we know he/she can be. It’s a looking toward the future to what he/she can/will be. This believing requires hope.
Love HOPES all things. We actively wait with full confidence that Jesus saves people and can save this one about which we are thinking. Jesus bore everything humans put Him through because He believed they could and would change for good, the true goodness only God is and gives. He holds on with hope of a person’s salvation and graciously excuses the faults and errors of this person and all people. Jesus actively waits with confident faith and hope knowing many people will be saved and perfected when they arrive in heaven. Likewise, we can have this same hope for people to be saved, changed, and perfected because we know Jesus personally and ultimately believe in Him, His power, His plan of salvation, His love, the future perfection of Christians. Only because Jesus saved us can we have this ultimate, unsupersedable hope.
Love ENDURES all things because of God’s power. Jesus knew this when He prayed in the garden before His betrayal when He said to His Father, “Not My will but Yours be done.” He endured the worst form of death to be the sin sacrifice because He knew every person could and many myriads would believe, be saved, would change, would bear, and would endure many things by other people while others watched the Christian’s attitude, actions, and words. The Christian would because Jesus did and because of their hope in the promise of being with God in heaven and being perfected there.
Only by God’s power and following Jesus’ example can a Christian love to the depths Jesus did. Loving a person because of who they can be with Jesus’ touch by salvation. Love bears all things from people. It believes the best of people. Love hopes by waiting confidently for what Jesus will do in that person. And love endures everything knowing that what God promised will happen and what Jesus said is true. He loves us. He died for us. He can and will save those who believe in Him.
Jesus can help us bear, believe, hope, and endure all things from all people because Jesus gives us the power to do them like He did and because we care for them and see the good they can be because of Jesus. He can change each person by saving them. Each person gets to believe in Jesus for him/herself. Salvation is personal. No one can save another by baptizing him/her or being baptized in place of him/her. Jesus gives us the ability to believe in Him.
Will you believe? He gives us the ability to bear, believe, hope, and endure.
Are you accepting His power and living as Jesus lived? Jesus’ love has the power to save you, then make you strong enough to live love like Him.
Will you choose to live by and through His power-filled loved?
