Love believes all things, yet is not deceived.

We have believed lies in the past. We have been lied to by people. How do we go forward? Should we hate liars? Or do we love the liar? Love your enemies. A liar is an enemy of truth.

God hates lying because he is Truth Itself. Yet, he loves the person who lies. He can rescue the liar and bring them to truth. He has mercy on the liar and loves them. We, too, can forgive those who lie and want good for them. Love believes people can be changed. Yes, they can join the truth. Why? Because love believes all things.

Love believes there are many lies in this world. The worst are lies about God. “God wants to judge you. God wants to condemn you.” These are two great lies.

He is full of mercy. He wants to give you eternal life. That is the truth. God wants to bless you. God wants to give you all good things. This is the truth. But all the good of God is wrapped up in his son, Jesus. This is also true. Truth is a person.

God counters the lies told and believed about him with Jesus. His son is his response. Doing good to people is how he answers wrongness in the world. Jesus was always doing good. He was not deceived about things because he believed all things.

He knew people had gone wrong. He knew some people wanted to kill him. Yet, he gave those very people opportunity to be changed into something so much better. He reasoned with them and tried to convince them of the truth.

His great act was to convince all people of how bad sin was and how good God was. Sin had brought men to a place where they condemned the one sent to rescue them. Others were indifferent to the terrible death of a good man. The badness of men met the goodness of God when the Christ was brutally killed by a torturous, humiliating method of execution.

Jesus knew how people had gone wrong. He knew how corrupted they had become. He knew sin and evil would destroy the very humanity of a person.

Then he put himself in the hands of those very people. He did not resist when his betrayal led to his arrest. He did not defend himself at his trial. When asked if he was the Christ, the sent one, he gave the truth knowing it would lead to his death.

He returned from that death. The first one to come back from death. He was different now. He said all power had been given to him. Wow! And what did he want to do with all power. Get revenge? Humiliate his enemies? No. None of that.

He wanted his disciples to spread this message to all people. That God was willing to forgive and forget their past wrong. That he was able to restore them to real humanity. That God wanted to reclaim them as his own children.

Love believes all things. Yet, it is not deceived. Are people selfish? Of course they are. Are they working toward their own corruption? Yes. Are their methods to improve themselves going to work? Not a chance.

He reaches out to each one, in mercy, to help them. But he wants to cure them not just make them feel better. He is the Great Doctor who prescribes Following Jesus as the method of cure. He is the example of a good person in a bad world. He is the very method of recovery. He is the Savior. And he shows us what God is really like: Our Good and Loving Father.

Love believes all things, yet is not deceived.

I Corinthians 13

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What do you believe? Someone tells you something and it sounds true. You believe it. But you find out it may be a lie.

So, we live in a world where some people are trustworthy and some are not. But let us go further. Some would deceive us for their own benefit. But a few want good for us. Friends and family that we can love and trust are few. And even they might be mistaken.

Now, we are wiser but do we believe all things? Not at all. We discover that only one is completely good, always trustworthy, and is very wise and also quite powerful. We believe in God. Is that enough? Do we now believe all things? No. Why not? Because love believes all things. Do we love?

Faith works through love. Do we love God? Why should we love him? Well, God is only motivated by love. He acts because he loves. He wants the best for us. His power and wisdom guide his acting in love toward us. He is the source of all love. And he made us to be able to love.

Love is the relationship with God. He knows no other relationship. And how do we know about God’s great love for us? Because of Jesus. He revealed the nature of the Father in his human life. He showed us that God loved us.

First, by loving people and doing good to them and then by walking directly into certain death for our benefit. God loved us so much, he sent his son to us knowing that he would be treated badly in his life and condemned to a torturous death by evil men in the end.

Why would he send the one he loved to the people of earth? Because he believed he would win some of them back. Yes, he would restore them and give them eternal life. He would enable them to become what he created them to be.

Now, let us return to our original statement: Love believes all things. This starts with God. God believes all things and is not deceived. He knew people would fail. He knew they would go against him when he created them. He knew they would do terrible things. Yet, he went ahead and created them. Why? Because he believed he could love them back to himself and rescue them by his love. Yes, we can return to our real Father.

Now, how do we have faith in God? We have faith because of our loving relation to him. We could believe God is powerful. And that he made everything. We could also believe we should respect him and honor him. We could do all this without loving him. And it would be meaningless.

Worse, we would probably find some rules to follow like religion tells us. Again, worthless. Without love for him and believing he loves us, it would all be a waste of time.

Love believes all things. Do some people want to hurt us? Yes. Do they want to take advantage of us? Sure. We can believe those things but love believes all things. Love believes God overrides all that. He is working things out for us beyond all that. He is working all things together for our good. We believe all things and are not deceived because we believe in our God who is our Father. He is a powerful caring father who has us in his hand at all times.

You are in his hand. You are not in his pocket. You are not on his shelf. You are not in his safe. You are in his hand. If you want to care for something, protect it and not forget about it, you hold it in your hand. That is what God does with you. He holds you in his hand. He will never let go of you. And you don’t want to leave that hand because you love and trust him. You know of no better place to be than in the hand of your loving father.

Love Believes More

I Corinthians 13

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