100 Days of Books at My Daily Journey

Every morning after having breakfast we are reading a very important book, Loving the Way Jesus Loves by Phil Ryken. And this is an important book, because as I have mentioned before, the doctrine of the love of God (His love for us, and the love among brethren) has been abused in so many cases that sometimes it feels like it is not essential to understand and study it in the Christian life, we just take it for granted or “use” it against “the unloving brothers and sisters” when we feel offended.

In the chapter, Love Hopes, I learned many wonderful things about the love that hopes. In this chapter Ryken bring together two passages to help us understand in depth the “love that hopes”: Love hopes all things ( I Cor. 13:7), and John 17, the High Priestly Prayer.

When Jesus is praying before the Father the night before his crucifixion, he prays a prayer full of love, full of that love that hopes all things. And he prays hoping for several things:

He hoped that he would be glorified (v.1-5).

He hoped that his people would persevere (v.10-15).

He hoped that his people would be holy (v.16- 19).

He hoped that we would be one. He prayed for our unity (v.20.23).

He hoped that one day we would enter his glory (v.24-26).

Each one of these points are extremely important and beautiful when we look at them closely (and Ryken does a great job in helping us do that), but today I want to focus in one: Jesus prayed with all hope that we, His people, would become one.

Ryken says,

“We are too weak to to keep ourselves safe from Satan’s temptations, too sinful to sanctify ourselves, and too dead to raise ourselves up to everlasting life. Nevertheless, Jesus dared to hope that we would become one holy and loving church, kept safe by the end of time, when we would live in the love of God for all eternity.”

Because Jesus prayed this, I also dare to pray saying, “Lord, make us one, make us one. Make us one, help us love one another in spite of the differences, help us love one another genuinely. Make us one, Jesus. “

And this wonderful love that hopes all things has been poured into our hearts (Rom. 5:5), which means that we can love with the kind of love that Jesus loves us. We can love with the love that hopes all things. And “this hope will not disappoint us because it flows from the God of love.”

“Hope is not simply wishful thinking. It does not depend on things working out the way we planned, or having our problems solved when we expect them to be solved. On the contrary, our true hope is Jesus himself, and the promises of his love.”

This love that hopes all things brings us to our knees, just like it brought Jesus to his knees. “When we have the love of Jesus in us, as Jesus prayed we would, then we will do for others what he did for us. We will not simply hope for the best, but because we have of the hope we have in Jesus, we will pray for the best.” 

“Love hopes all things. Understand that whenever we give up hope, this is really a failure to love, because love hopes. Love hopes that someone lost in sin will believe the gospel. It hopes that a broken relationship will be reconciled. It hopes that by the grace of God, sin will be forgiven, and forgiven again. It hopes that even after a long struggle, there will still be spiritual progress. It hopes that someone who has fallen away can be restored to useful service in the Kingdom of God. It even hopes that when a body gets sick and dies, it will be raised again at the last day.”

Praying that I will learn to love with the love that hopes all things, 

Becky

Maybe you will also enjoy reading: The Doctrine of Love: Our Identity as Christians.