Galatians 5:6 For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.

Lately, I have been reflecting on this verse especially the last part. Have you ever read a verse in the bible and then you find yourself seeing something that you never saw before? What I saw may be obvious to you, but was not obvious to me with out taking time to consider this verse. When we think about faith, we tend to think of it as a set of beliefs that we agree with such as Jesus is the son of God or that his death paid the ransom for our sins. But, if all we can do is agree with these Bible truths then all we have is an intellectual knowledge of God and his word. Agreeing with the truths of the Bible is good, but it is not enough and is not the belief that leads to eternal life. Another mistake we make is separating our faith from our actions. I’ve often heard people excuse themselves from certain obligations, you know those obligations that set us apart from the rest of the world. They say things like “this or that doesn’t matter because I have faith.” However, the author of this verse seems to be saying something different. To me it seems like he is saying that faith works. Not that we should combine faith with works, but that faith itself, works.

And how does it work? The answer is in the verse. Love is the gas that gets the car of faith going! When we consider the cross and the fact that our Lord left the joys of Heaven to come to this dark world, we can’t help but to love him! If the world knew what we know about Jesus, if people could just stop for a moment to consider his sacrifice they would love him to. Because I love my wife I trust and serve her even to the point of sacrifice. I have discovered why doing the will of our Heavenly Father can seem so hard at times. The reason is that we are carnal sold under sin. (Romans 7:14) The natural man doesn’t receive the things of God. In fact he can not be subject to the will of God. (Romans 8:7) This is why we need new hearts. We need to be born again and when we have this born again experience, the will of God will be a joy. We will serve him out of love and nothing will be too hard for us to do for him. No one will have to stand over us to make sure that we’re not taking his name in vain, keeping the Sabbath holy or any of God’s other commandments because it will be as natural as breathing.

This is the experience God wants us to have. being connected to our savior causes our obedience to become more and more natural to us and it happens when we receive fresh revelations of his love. If you’ve been in love, you know from experience that it grows. It grows when we spend time with that special someone, when we remember the good times and the bad times. Every day we spend contemplating God’s goodness and his wonderful sacrifice of love causes our love for him to grow . Considering faith from this perspective helps me to see why many throughout the history of the Christian church went to the stake singing or dressed up like they were going to a wedding. I have heard once that we should spend a thoughtful hour thinking about the life of Christ and his sacrifice. After taking time to consider this verse I can see why.

If you have any comments or objections please feel free to reply to this blog. I would love to hear from you and I welcome your feedback. God bless!