Sunday October 17th // Faith, Hope and Love

Sam Harvey reminds BVC of the culture of the church, a place of faith, hope and love. HOMEWORK! Faith Build your faith by placing yourself in environments of faith. Read a good Christian book, get in some podcasts, hang out with some of the people of faith in our church Hope Listen to Steve Grahams talk from the BVC camp on Hope. https://youtu.be/XdJijQdw2-k https://soundcloud.com/user-782527245/bvc-easter-camp-sunday-morning-hope?si=eb51957bb27e4f6db6d69c2349e0bb4f Love Reflect on the description of love in 1 Corinthians 13 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Perhaps the best thing to do with a passage like this is to take it slowly, a line at a time and to reflect on at least three things: first, ways in which We see this quality in Jesus himself; second, ways in which we see it (or more likely, alas, don't see it) in ourselves; and third, ways in which, if we were like that, it would work out in practice. Such an exercise should never be undertaken simply in order to feel either good about oneself or frustrated at one's lack of moral growth. It should always be done in prayer; and at the third stage, as we ask for grace to envisage situations where we could behave differently, we should try to imagine what doing that would feel like, what steps we would have to take to make it happen, to avoid lapsing back into our normal behaviour. Then, when we're faced with the relevant situation, we will at least have a choice which we have already thought about, instead of behaving as creatures of habit. And of course the ultimate aim is for this way of life, peculiar though it seem, and almost unbelievable at points, to become the engrained way we habitually behave.