Posted on April 29, 2009 - by bj

The Intangibles

So i’ve been thinking about this quote for some time now….it’s from Lee Stroble’s book, The Case for Faith. I don’t know if he said it or if someone else did but anyway, it says….”Only in a world where faith is difficult, can faith exist.” And how true this is!  We wouldn’t need faith if we never endured hardship and all we knew was good. This is also true for many other intangible things such as love and courage. Courage can only exist in the presence of fear and difficulty—we must overcome fear to be courageous. There will always be “something to lose”/consequences as a result of our actions (there is a right and a wrong). We won’t always experience them (consequences) but they’re still present. If they were not, we would never have any reason to work hard and try our best at things—we would never need to depend on God b/c we would never have to make that choice–He would have been a mere provider. We would never have to choose right if that was all we knew.

LOVE—- It’s because of an evil and corrupted world that we can understand the depths of love because of what Christ does through people during hard times. i feel like we couldn’t love other people wholeheartedly if there were no reason to reach out to them…which i guess turns into there not being any reason to love at all. i mean, if your teacher said that they were giving you an A on a test no matter what, would there be any reason to study?  1 Cor 13:4-8 wouldn’t exist unless we understood what love wasn’t.  “⁴Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  ⁸Love never fails…….” Patience and kindness can only exist if people have the choice of being impatient or unkind, and etc…. LOVE NEVER FAILS—–we could never know this unless we knew that failure exists in the absence of love (We see this in the world everyday).  “Love never failing” happened when Jesus gave His life for you and I–which was the perfect display of love.  Love never fails, God is love, God never fails.  Love you all