THE MUSKETEERS – Faith, Hope, Love, and Prayer
The ‘three musketeers’ is a historical adventure novel written in 1844 by French author Alexandre Dumas. The meaning basically relates to three or four people who are close associates whether in friendship or in business.
The moral lesson of the characters in the novel is “All for one and one for all” It means that if they are broken down and one is alone, that could be bad. However, when the band is all together, they can conquer all bad things.
Let’s dive into God’s word.
FIRST and SECOND MUSKETEERS- FAITH and HOPE
Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see”. (NIV)
Let’s look at the literary meaning of both words:
Faith is defined as the confidence or trust in a person or thing, or a belief not based on proof. Hope on the other hand, is defined as an optimistic attitude of mind based on an expectation or desire.
The message bible definition of Hebrews 11:1 defined it in a more suitable way by giving it a deeper meaning. It says, “The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It’s our handle on what we can’t see”. Biblical hope suggests that it is the confident expectation of what God has promised and deriving its strength in his faithfulness. It is the expectancy that keeps our faith alive until what we believe for comes. In as much as we are humans, we need these two attributes of God in our lives. Even with their dependency on one other, there are basic differences in their usage with respect to our day to day lives.
For example, we hope for a great future, good spouses, good career and so on but in order for that to be more than just a wishful thinking, we need to bring in Faith to level the trust we have in God.
Hebrews chapter 11, shows how faith was being used by the characters in the bible. Verse 3 says, “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible”. In other words, the universe was created through the words of God, and it was recorded in the bible but no one was there to witness how it was created but our faith in God made us believe that only God is capable of doing that.
The characters in the bible exhibited faith in God based on an instruction or promise even though they were not aware of the result of the step of faith they took. Now, the line of hope in these characters is that even though they were unaware of the results, their faith strengthened the hope they had in what they couldn’t see and it gave them the strength to obey.
Sometimes faith doesn’t require that the promise God has given to you will be fulfilled while you’re still on earth but the assurance that the promises will be fulfilled shows in our faith in God. Sounds confusing right? Stay with me.
Now, what I mean by that sentence is that FAITH shows that we believe that there’s a greater reward in heaven rather than the earthly riches and it was evident in some of the characters in the bible. Look at Abraham. All the promises he had, started taking place after he died. For example, he was called Father of all nations, how many nations did he live to witness on that promise?
It is our faith and hope that makes us understands that this earth is not a perfect world and that the imperfection is embedded in its evil desires.
Jesus used faith to heal the sick, raise the dead, perform miracles, and many other things. That’s one of the Significance of Faith.
Hope without faith is useless because our hope is backed up with confidence that it will happen later but such has to rely on faith; which deals with you backing up that hope in a Being that is capable in carrying your expectations out.
There are thousands of believers walking around with their hopes up but ultimately pouring zero faith when it comes to their prayers.
Faith and hope are intertwined in our beliefs as Christians. We have faith in Jesus and that leads us to our hope that one day we will be with him. Faith and hope are complementary. Faith is grounded in the reality of the past. Hope is looking to the reality of the future. Without faith, there is no hope and vice versa- Titus 1:2
THIRD MUSKETEER- LOVE (1Corinthians 13:1-13)
1 Cor 13:11 says “And now these three remain: Faith, Hope and love. But the greatest of these is love”.
We have three Greek words that explains love, namely:
Eros; which is the Romantic type of love, Phileo; which is the type of love between friends and siblings, Agape; the parental and self-sacrificing love. These different types of love explain how they can be used or how they exhibit themselves in our lives.
The passage read shows how important love is and how love is the foundation of all things. Verse 2 says “If you have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if you have a Faith that can move mountains, but have not love, you are NOTHING”. That’s how deep love is to God!
That is why Christ had to remind us in Luke 10:27 that we should “love the lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our strength and with our entire mind and we should love our neighbor as ourselves”.
Your faith won’t function properly if you don’t have love.
You can’t place your Hope in what you don’t love.
Likewise, you can’t pray to what you don’t love. So, everything starts and ends with love. God created this universe out of love, Christ died out of love. So, you understand how important love is?
1 Corinthians 13 suggests that even if you have all the gifts in this world and you lack love, it’s completely useless.
The purpose of love is to first understand the creator of the universe and how he created the world out of love. Without love, our faith, hope and prayers are useless. But if we fall deeply in love with God, it’s like a seed that grows to become a big tree that bears good fruits. Love helps to deepen our faith and hope In Christ.
1 Cor 14:1 says, “Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy”.
Just understand the message that love keeps people together. Imagine for once, if people genuinely Love each-other, the world will be a better place to live in. Relationships, friendships, and marriages will be better. Looking at love now, it has been redefined by pop culture and perverse generation. The moment your love is found in the one who created it, you exhibit Faith, Hope, and prayers without limit. Learn to Love the way God has instructed us to.
FOURTH MUSKETEER- PRAYERS (Colossians 1:1-6)
Praying adds more sauce to our love, hope and faith in God. In as much as love is the foundation of it all, prayers give you that assurance that you’re connected with God.
While studying different passages for prayers I discovered Colossians chapter 1 and I noticed how Paul was able to use prayers to encourage not only himself but the people of Colosse at that time.
Paul was glad with the people’s acceptance to the word of truth and in verse 5, he made mention of faith, love and hope which ultimately sums up the reward of saints stored in heaven.
Paul couldn’t stop praying for the people because he understood how effective prayer was. And once the love you have for God is backed up with faith, your hope for reward is further strengthened through prayers.
To strengthen the people of Colosse’s faith, Paul prayed in verse 9 and he said that God will continually fill them up with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. That’s deep! That’s how strong prayer is. He also prayed that in our faith and hope in Christ, we will live a life worthy of the lord and please God in every way.
So, let me tell you what prayer does;
Prayer gives us power
Prayer opens the door to attain God’s wisdom
Prayer gives us great endurance and patience
Prayer allows us to bear good fruits and grow in God’s knowledge.
So what is my conclusion?
I said earlier that the motto for the “Three Musketeers” is “All for one and one for all”
I decided to pick this line and intertwine it with Faith, Hope, love and prayers. Which means that as the motto implies, they all need each other to bring forth good fruits.
Prayer strengthens your faith
Prayer strengthens your hope
Prayer strengthens your love and lastly but not the least,
Prayer gives us the reassurance that our faith and hope is in Christ Jesus!
Remain Blessed.
Faith and Hope, the two bicycle wheel that keeps other part moving.
More Grace and ink to the pen that wrote this.