Hope in Heaven?

                “Now we have faith, hope and love, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor 13:13).  These are the three primary virtues, the great virtues, the qualities of life that produce fruit.  We believe the Word of God, we yearn to see our Lord and for our eternal estate, and the love of God is poured into us liberally.  Faith, hope and love become the only required essentials for a happy and fruitful life.  It is so simple.

                What about in heaven?  How do those virtues apply there?  We have no need for faith, for we shall see with our eyes and touch with our hands and hear with our ears, and there will be no need for faith. 

“Hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one hope for what he sees?” (Rom 8:24).  We shall not have need of either faith or hope in heaven, for our hopes will have been realized.  If one holds something in his hand, he does not need to hope for it.  We will have received our reward already, and will be blessed.

This leaves love.  This is why love is the greatest of the three, because it endures eternally, where faith and hope dissipate into irrelevancy.  Love will be the air that we breathe, the food that we eat, every relationship we have, and love will permeate all of heaven and earth in that day, as it ought to have done from the Garden of Eden forward.