These famous words of Paul remind us of the important things in life..”and thus abides  Faith, Hope and Charity,  but the greatest of these..Charity. “

 “Hope”does not mean  that we have doubts, and yet “hope” it comes about.  It means we look forward to what is to occurr,  we have  expectations  of what’s to come.

 Charity is defined in this instance,  not as doing “good” things for people,   as is the commmon definition of today, but rather  he is speaking of love, unselfish  love, given freely with no anticipation of reward.   But “love” doesn’t have the “ring” to it, that “charity” has.  

 In this declaration,   he is telling  us  that it is the faith in Christ, and through His love  for God and man,  that  enabled Him to sacrifice  Himself, so that all the sins of the world would be abolished, the last being “death”.  In so doing,   we "believers"  now have the “expectation”  of life after death and the wondrous  events that will occurr to us.

 That, of course, doesn’t mean that  we have exclusive "life after death", and that those who don’t believe in  Christ  will not  be returned from death .  Certainly not, because Paul tells us, through the  knowledge attained from the Spirit of Christ,  that ALL will be saved, without exception.   

 But, what it does mean is that  we are blessed to know and have every “expectation”  of what is to occurr, which  does  give us a special place,  because so many others in this world  do not  accept or believe what we know to be true.

 So, now  let’s look at the faith in Christ that we have.

 It is our faith in Him that  makes us realize that we are part of His body,  and we quite literally died  with Him on the cross.  That is what  Paul is reminding us of, continually.   His death is ours as well.  His vivicatiion  from death will be ours as well,  And, as we live, as Christ now lives, we must try to live as Christ would..not easy.

 It is through our faith in Him, that we also know that sin is justified,  abrogated as though it never happened,   We’re also aware that, through this faith and the grace of God,that  resistance to sin magnifies. As Paul says, "..where sin increased, graace abounded all the nore."

 It is our faith in Him that gives us comfort to live our lives daily,  love  others as He would have us do, and continually  look forward to what awaits us..anticipate what's to come.

 It is this faith in Him that makes us believe  what Paul says concerning  the wondrous future, facing  "believers",  regardless of how  "science fiction"-like it sounds..paulnbob