Jul 1, 2009
The Life-Changing Dynamics of Beginning with Faith, but Aiming for Love
The greatest virtue is love. Love is what will endure. Love is what makes our salvation and sanctification possible.
However, faith stands out as the first step that makes accepting and sharing love possible. While love is the greatest aim for our lives, it is faith that must be a primary catalyst and ongoing spark throughout our lives.
I see faith as a bridge or perhaps a kind of fuel. It isn’t the ultimate destination or the entire machine, but it is no doubt essential from the start. While in this world we never hit a time when faith isn’t necessary.
Faith keeps the Christian works humming, but our goal isn’t to became faith-filled people. Our goal is to become God-filled people, who are therefore love-filled people since God is love.
As we tap into the essence of God and God’s extraordinary love, it is faith that carries us. It is well and good that God loves us, but it won’t do us any good if we cannot believe in it, trust in it, or rest in it.
However, it isn’t enough to just believe in this love. Faith draws us in to God where we aim to be consumed by his love, his salvation, and his life-changing Spirit. That’s why Jesus said the mark of his followers will be love.
We can’t get to love without faith, but we dare not stop with faith. Faith has connected us with the love of God. We can now spend the rest of our lives believing in and living in the fullness of that love.
Wow! Well said.
I made copies of this post and brought them into the prison tonight. It went right along with what the Holy Spirit was doing in the whole evening.
Glad to hear that the blessing has been passed on and God’s using it.
A thought that occurred to me last night as John was talking about this blog is that love is the demonstration of faith. Look at James 2:14 “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?” and 1 Corinthians 13:13 “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
It is when we express our love in action that our faith becomes evident to the object of our love. I can walk around the house all day thinking about how much I love Betty, even tell her from time to time, but it is the actions that prove the sincerity of my statements. Some of those actions carry much weight and are the result a good deal of effort on my part but many are very small in my mind, i.e. picking up my dirty socks.
So, my actions range from the mundane to the transcendental; am I faithful in telling those I hold near and dear that they are objects of the love of the Lord and that His love is expressed in a very tangible action?