Thursday, January 17, 2013

Love...Believes All Things

A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver
"Love...believes all things" (1 Cor 13:7)

Love is "a more excellent way" (1 Cor 12:31) and abides forever (1 Cor 13:13). Love covers a multitude of sins. God is the personification of love as it is written, "God is love" (1 Jn 4:8). But here we want to consider that love "believes all things".

It is not as though love is naive and ignorant of truth and therefore believes things that are not true. That would be absurd. The point is that when we love someone we assume the best from them. In our minds they are innocent until proven guilty. We give them the benefit of the doubt. Love is not quick to condemn a brother, it is quick to defend a brother. 

Love is necessary especially when communicating with others. Admittedly, sometimes it is hard to say things exactly the way we see them. At times accurate words escape us and regrettably, there are times when we say things we simply do not mean. This is when love is necessary. Love will allow the hearer to assume that the speaker "meant well," and will allow for clarification. Love does not jump to conclusions about wrong motives. Love does not foster an atmosphere of doubt or criticism. Love assumes the best. Love “believes all things.” 

This "spirit" of love is evidenced in the apostles expectation of good things from the people of God. The apostles assumed that the saints would say and do the right things and if they slipped up it was simply a mistake and not from wicked intention. This does not mean that they took sin lightly, but it does mean that they believed that God could bring repentance and enable the people to mature in Christ. (The same attitude is needed in the churches today.) 

The way this attitude is expressed in Scripture is by the phrase "I have confidence in you in the Lord" (Gal 5:10) or "we are confident in the Lord concerning you" (2 Th 3:4). Their confidence was not simply in other men, but in the Lord working through other men. How could the apostles say things like this. How could they say, "We are convinced of better things concerning you, things that accompany salvation" (Heb 6:9) after they rebuked the saints for their tendency to backslide? Were they ignoring the truth of the situation? No. They simply believed that God was able to perfect the good work that He began in those believers. They were confident in His ability to change them and their willingness to be changed. They were not being blind or naive. They were believing all things because they loved God and loved the brethren. 

Do not let your first instinct be toward accusation or condemnation. Do not listen to people speak simply waiting to critique their certain mistakes. Love! Look for the good. Look for spiritual life. Look for right things to be said. Be confident that though many that name the name of the Lord, today, are weak or even dead spiritually - they do not have to stay that way. Like Ezekiel, when we consider if the dry, dead bones surrounding us can live, let us respond, "Lord, you know" and then get to preaching what God can do (Ezek 37).