Not faith, not hope, but love is the greatest.

Faith is not the greatest. Hope is not the greatest either. Love is the greatest.

When we had no faith in God, when we had no hope in God, we had the love of God.

“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.” (Romans 5:6)

It’s not the love that changes. It’s the love that remains unshaken. It’s the love that no one and nothing can separate us from, the love of God.

Here are the words of a man who got knocked out and picked up by Christ, the love of God, in every form. Read on:

“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

“Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13)

If you’ve read or heard of the works of Paul as Saul, and how Christ caused him to then call himself Paul, you can understand why such a man of all would write this narrative in the first person and conclude that after all is said and done, love is the greatest. The love of God, the love of Christ, the love the Holy Spirit produces in our heart.