Alba 1-11-2026
LOVE BELIEVES ALL THINGS
I Corinthians 13:7
Pew Researchers keep track of the trust Americans have in their government. Would it surprise you to hear that on average 73% of people trust the government just about always or most of the time. If that sounds confusing to you, that was back in 1958. From the year 2007 to the present those saying they can trust the government always or most of the time has never been higher than 30%. This past year the average trust level was only 22%.
Trust is a tricky business. Trust isn’t easy to come by; once it is lost it isn’t easy to regain. On the one hand, it’s a prerequisite for many worthwhile things. Trust is necessary for a successful marriage, for friendships to do well, the choice of someone to care for a child, and even just eating at a restaurant. On the other hand, putting your trust in the wrong place often carries a high price.
There are areas where believing and trusting are difficult. But of one thing we can be certain: “Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus!” I Corinthians 13:7 states that love believes all things. Other translations say: love always trusts. The theme is trust, and how love acts toward others in the arena of trust. It teaches us another aspect of love.
I. Love that believes all things, that always trusts, gives the benefit of the doubt.
This verse of scripture is saying that love, as a general rule, is not suspicious or cynical. This is especially important as it relates to evaluating people. Love considers a person innocent until proven otherwise. But hatred leaps to the conclusion that the worst possible explanation is the correct one. It finds reason to mistrust, to see everything in the worst possible light. In our current political climate we see this approach all the time.
On the other hand, love leaps to the conclusion that the person loved is in the right; love chooses the most favorable explanation. Love holds out hope that the person loved will be vindicated—while allowing for the truth at the same time.
Love welcomes the idea that a person is better than we thought, or more blameless than expected. Love roots for it all to be a big misunderstanding instead of for there to be sin. Love errs on the side of trust. A spirit of mutual trust is what ought to be found in a Biblical community, like church. This is an indispensable ingredient for unity.
And when trust is broken, love’s instinct is to heal and restore. It is quick to give the benefit of the doubt to the person who shows signs of repentance and a true desire to change. Contrast this with Job’s “friends”, who were ready to turn on him at a moment’s notice. When they saw the fix that Job was in, their first instinct was to assume the worst about him. They thought, like some seem to think today, that God was some kind of celestial vending machine God, where if you put the right thing in, you get blessings from God, but if you don’t, you get trouble. People thought that in Jesus’ day; remember the blind man whom Jesus healed, and they asked, "who sinned? This man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” It doesn’t work that way, but Job’s so called friends thought so. And since bad things were happening to Job, they jumped to the conclusion that Job was doing something sinful. And so they condescendingly lectured him; that’s not love.
Love doesn’t act that way, but rather, in a spirit of trust, love always seeks to see the good in others. Love prevents us from writing off anyone. Love believes all. Yet there is a distinction.
II. Love that believes all things, that always trusts, does not require us to be gullible.
This is not a call to suspend our common sense, or sound judgment. It is not a call to knowingly walk into an ambush. In all of life we have to be prudent and discerning. Love doesn’t give the benefit of the doubt when there is reason to doubt, of course. It doesn’t demand an unreasonable trust when trust has been destroyed. Gullibility is not a virtue! Too many people are gullible. Let me illustrate. With the rise of the Internet, and now AI, has come the proliferation of stories which are purported to be true but are in reality elaborate hoaxes.
They range from sensational stories, to conspiracy theories, to something-for-nothing offers, to tear-jerking stories of someone in terrible physical straits who needs prayer and cards and letters and money, or what have you. When it says that love believes all things, that love trusts, it doesn’t mean that it is loving to be gullible, to naively accept everything that comes down the block.
Of course, we can go the other way and tend to not trust anyone. We can go through life being skeptical of everyone around us, and when we live that way, we will miss a tremendous number of blessings. Are there people we cannot believe? Absolutely. You need to handle those types of people, but if you see everyone that way, you'll be lonely and unhappy. One of the things that can help us believe and trust others is if we have a love that maintains faith in God's ability to work in an individual's life.
III. Love that believes all things, that always trusts, puts its trust in God.
How do we produce a love that trusts? We start with knowing that we serve a God who is trustworthy. We can believe and trust Him because He has proven Himself to be true. The Bible tells us that God is love. There is no greater love than for one to lay down their life for others. Jesus came and did just that. He laid down His life on that cross so that the punishment for our sins would be paid. On that basis, God is able to forgive us of our sins and anything we have done wrong. God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. And when we place our trust in what He has done for us we can be saved from the fires of hell and look forward to a heavenly home. Again, it is so sweet to trust in Jesus.
When we accept God's trustworthy love given to us through Jesus, that is what enables us to get past being skeptical and enable us to trust others as well. Of course, all these characteristics of love are what the Holy Spirit produces in our lives as we cooperate with Him. God does an inside job in our lives, as we cooperate with the work He is doing.
Sometimes it takes God given courage to extend trust to a person. Imagine having a dream in which God announces that you should go talk to a man who is a sworn enemy of all Christians, but now has faith. You might say, “Wait, God, this guy is trouble, and while I’m really happy that he’s a believer and all, and well, I’m just not real sure about that!” Acts chapter nine details a fairly similar scenario. There was a fellow named Ananias. God told him to meet with Saul of Tarsus, the sworn enemy of the early church.
Saul was a major persecutor of Christians; we know what he did, and he was good at it, in fact notorious for it. Imagine being in Ananias’ shoes! How could he go meet with Saul? By first having faith; believing in and trusting God!
In fact, that is the cord running through all of the great people of faith mentioned in scripture. Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. He went where God directed because he trusted God. David faced the giant because he knew that God was bigger than Goliath; Daniel trusted God and faced the lions; the three Hebrew young men (Shaddrach, Meshach and Abednego) were confident God could deliver them.
Hebrews chapter eleven gives us confidence that we can accomplish all sorts of things in the power of God when we first put our faith in him. And in Ananias’ case—and sometimes, in ours—when we are called to trust others, we’ll be able to do so because we first put our trust God!
That doesn’t mean that trust in people will always be rewarded simply because we trust God. And that leads to the next point:
IV. Love that believes all things, that always trusts, can cause us to allow ourselves to sometimes get burned.
It is still best not to go around in life assuming that everyone is out to get you. There are worse things than having your pride bruised, your expectations disappointed, your hope shattered, even your heart broken; these aren’t the worst things that can happen to you. At the risk of ruining a good phrase, ‘Tis far better to have trusted and been disappointed than never to have trusted at all!
One preacher, when applying as a minister to a church told the congregation: “You have to trust my intentions. I may—no, I will—screw up. But you must trust that what I am trying to do, imperfectly as I might try to do it, is to shepherd this church into fuller obedience and more effective ministry. I’ll try to earn that trust over time, but you have to extend me some right off the bat. Vote 'No' if you won’t do that.”
He reminded the congregation of having said that after ministering with them for ten years. And then he added, “You’ve trusted me. Now, do that same thing, for others. That’s love—a love that “believes all.”
Finally,
V. Love that believes, that always trusts in God, can lead to something good.
If you are a Christian and you really believe what the Bible says is true, then every good promise in scripture is yours.
What you believe makes a difference, What you believe changes everything in this life. When you stopped doubting and made that decision to put your faith in the Lord, repenting of your sin and any rebellion toward God, when you turned to God in obedient faith and said, “Please forgive me”, and were baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, do you know what happened? God did a miracle in your life, you were spiritually brought to life, you were born again!
Yet we may still need help. In Mark 9:23-24 Jesus said to the father who requested help for his son who had an unclean spirit, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”
Let us be people who fully trust God and allow that trust to spill over into other areas of our lives so that we can be people, wherever possible, who will believe and trust others in order to show them the love of God.
CLOSE:
Years ago, Monroe Parker, a preacher/evangelist, was traveling through South Alabama on a hot day. He stopped at a watermelon stand, picked out a watermelon, and asked the proprietor how much it cost.
“It’s $1.10,” he replied. Parker dug into his pocket, found only a bill and said, “All I have is a dollar.”
“That’s ok,” the seller said, “I’ll trust you for it.” “Well, that’s very nice of you,” Parker responded, and picking up the watermelon, started to leave.
“Hey, where are you going?” the man behind the counter demanded. “I’m going outside to eat my watermelon.”
“But you forgot to give me the dollar!”
“You said you would trust me for it,” Parker called back. “Yeah, but I meant I would trust you for the dime!”
“Sir,” Parker replied, “You did not trust me at all. You were just going to take a ten-cent gamble on my integrity!”
How fully do we trust God when we often act as if He is not involved in our lives and we aren't expecting anything good from Him? May we truly trust Him.
