----LOVE COMES FIRST ~~

--"We love because He first loved us."
---[1 JOHN 4:19] --

---ONE evening my friend showed me one of the three decorative plaques for a wall arrangement in her living room. "See, I've already got Love," she said, holding up the plaque with the word written on it. "Faith and Hope are on order."

So Love comes first, I thought. Faith and Hope soon follow!

Love did come first. In fact it originated with God. First John 4:19 reminds us that "we love [God] because he first loved us." God's love, described in 1 Corinthians 13 (known as the "love chapter"), explains a characteristic of real love when it says, "Love never fails" (v.8).

Faith and hope are essential to the believer. It is only because we are justified by faith that "we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ": (Romans 5:1). And hope is described in Hebrews 6 as "an anchor for the soul, firm and secure" (v.19).

"Now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love" It's first and last. (1 Corinthians 13:13).

--Jesus is God. Jesus is Love. Jesus is our Faith, Hope and Love. ~~

--ODB/CKH~