Faith; No Greater Difference in Life

There is no greater difference in the life of man then Faith. It is the avenue to allow God to create spiritual life in your soul. How does God create a spiritual life in your soul? After Faith comes Hope. Before we have hope we must have faith. Faith is the foundation, the beginning, the first cause of hope. Hope is more then the natural instinct for happiness, it is the hope of happiness with God. Man has the natural instinct for happiness and seeks it. He sometimes seeks it in the wrong places.  The worse place he seeks happiness is in the things of the world. Hope is a freely chosen affirmation to God. Hope is a virtue, a good habit, a firm disposition to trust in Christ’s promises. Hope is the fire of perseverance, of fortitude, of pursuing the goal of eternal life to the end. The thinking mind asks “why”, hope is the response and the “Why”. Man will endure any hardship; give up anything even the offer of the whole world, even his life, if there is a big enough “Why”. The ultimate “Why” is eternal happiness.  The thinking mind asks, but what do we hope in? We hope in the promises of God. We do not have false hope, wrong hope, misdirected hope but true hope. True hope because we have the truest assurance that the hope will be satisfied, because God does not break his promises. The thinking mind asks how do we attain hope? We attain hope through the Holy Spirit. We do not rely on our own strength but on God’s grace. Love follows Hope that follows Faith. Love is the greatest virtue, the greatest good habit, the greatest sign of a virtuous centred character, the very nature of God, the ultimate reality. The nature of reality is love. The result of love is creation. The greatest commandment of God is to love. It is the greatest because the one God is the God of love. All creation comes from God because of love. When we love we are united with God. The visible evidence of the virtue of love in a person is good works. If there are good works there is love, if there is love there is hope, if there is hope there is faith.