Faith Without Love

Galatians 5:6

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcnision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

James 2:15-17

If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.


These two verses highlight the fact that true faith will always be accumpanied by good works. As James says, only faith producing works is true faith, and paul says in Galatians that this faith is the only thing that counts. This is an issue that has been addressed many times in many places, so instead simply talking about it and explaining it again, I'm going to take this idea, this truth and I'm going to run with it and draw it out in another area of life other than faith; expand the scope of this statement.

To start off with, lets establish that what James says is indeed correct. For starters I can tell you that it is correct because it is written in the Bible. 2 Timothy 3:16 says "All scripture is God-breathed", meaning that all scripture, though written by man, is the direct transcription of the Holy Spirit; the very words of God. Secondly, lets look at the logic of James' statement. He says, in essence, faith that does not produce fruit is not faith. Jesus himself says something along these lines. "Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. (Matt. 7:16-18)." The definition of faith, according to Dictionary.com is "confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another's ability." So, to have faith in Jesus is to trust Jesus and his promises. It means to trust that he has our best interest in mind, and to trust that what he says is true. He (Jesus) says "seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." Do you trust him? If yes, than the natural product of this trust will be a willingness and even an eagerness to "seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness." If that willingness and eagerness isn't there, than it should be apparent that neither is the trust. Just like if a tree claims to be a fig tree, but it produces thistles, it should be apparent that the tree is not a fig tree. So, the logic makes sense: faith that does not produce works is not faith.

At the start, I said I was going to take this idea and run with it; draw out some of the implications that this idea has in another area of life, particularly love. At the beginning, you can see written out Galatians 5:6, which says "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcnision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love." Paul here is basically saying the same thing as James. But he uses an important key word. "The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through LOVE." If the only thing that counts is faith producing love, I would think it is of some importance to understand what love looks like. To start to explore this question, lets see what God has to say about it. In the Gospel of John, he says in chapter three, verse sixteen, ""For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." What does this passage say about love? "For God so loved the world...", or God loved the world so much that... "he gave his only Son." God loved the world, so out of that love came a great and costly sacrifice. That points to a pretty extreme definition of love. Or here in John 15:12-13, we hear Jesus come out and say what John 3:16 is pointing to, "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends." Here Jesus says very plainly, that love, pure love, is "that someone lay down his life for his friends." Now let's apply this new definition of love to our life. What implications does that have. What are you really saying when you say you love someone? Are you saying that you would be willing to lay your life down for that person? And if this is the case, if the opportunity comes or the need arises to lay down your life for this person and you don't, is it really love? Now, before we get too far into this, I need to clarify the term "lay down your life." When I say this, I don't mean give up my life (a.k.a. die), though that is in the scope of this phrase. What I'm talking about is setting your own life aside, or even re-organizing or redefining your own life for the betterment of the one you love. This doesn't always mean to die, but if a situation arose in which your death would be the most benificial to the one you love, it would fit into the phrase laying down your life. Keeping all this in mind, let's look at another one of Jesus' commandments. In Matthew 19:19, Jesus says "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." So, we are not to just love those we care about, but we are to love our neighbors (everyone around us). How are we supposed to love, really love everyone around us? How can we lay down our lives in a way that will be most beneficial to the people around us? What is the one thing that we could do that would be of ultimate benefit? the answer to this sounds like it comes from Sunday school, but it's true. We show them the way to Jesus. Not only that, but we show them the beauty of Jesus by doing just what Jesus commanded us: Loving them as Jesus loved us. Jesus loved us so much that he gave himself for our salvation, so we are to love others sacrificially, putting aside our personal agenda's and our own desires in order that we can show others the Wonderful Savior.

Getting back on track, we started by examining the statement "faith without works is not faith", so lets continue in that thought process by asking the question, is love without sacrifice still love? We've already defined love as sacrificially living in order to show others to Jesus. Going back again to the analogy of the tree and it's fruit, if we say we love, but we don't live in a way that reflects this, what does that say about our claim to be loving? We can say that we love people, we can even tell people about Jesus, but unless our life matches our claim, unless we live in such a way to display the sacrificial love of Jesus, our claim to love is a lie. So if the fruit of faith is love, and the fruit of love is a sacrificial life, if we are not living a sacrificial life, what does that say about our claim to have faith? If love means living sacrificially, and we do not live a sacrificial life, than that would seem to suggest that we do not have love. And if the fruit of faith is love, and we do not have love, that would seem to suggest that we don't have faith. I'll leave you with this challenge. Look closely at your life. Examine the way you live and how you treat the people around you. Take every opportunity to "be Jesus" to those around you; to live in a sacrificial way that exhibits the love of Christ and leads the ones around you to a faith in Christ that produces love. By all means, don't stop telling people about Christ, but as you talk the talk, walk the walk.