Love is the power of faith. Faith needs love to be made perfect, because perfect faith results in faithfullness and faithfullness is a work of love. Faith and love go hand in hand because faith wants to believe, just as love trusts, faith sees through the darkness and weathers the storm, just as love endures all things, and faith seeks to put God first just as love always gives. 1 Corinthians 13 :4-7 Our faith is not just knowledge about God but a personal relationship with Him as Lord, and any relationship requires love to succeed, to endure trials and to grow, including our relationships with one another because we are called to be family in the Lord and to love one another. The perfect example of faith powered by love is seen in the life of Jesus Christ, who manifests Gods love ...

Because love is the power of faith we should focus on love, seize it and cultivate it... and we can because God is love, and He imparts that love to us when we draw near to Him as the scripture says... whatever touches what is holy shall become holy Leviticus 6:27, and love is of the Holy Spirit. By faith we draw near to God through sincere prayer, entering into His presence, because when Jesus died on the cross, the temple curtain separating God and man was torn in two from top to bottom... Mathew 27:51 Gods promise says that if we draw near to Him then He will draw near to us, James 4:8 and when He who is Holy draws near to us then our spirits are sanctified by His Holy Spirit as His holiness is imparted to our spirits. If we allow God to fill our hearts with His Holy Spirit then we are filled with the love of God because love is the pre-eminate characteristic of God's holiness. Because God is the source of our love, love is the fruit of faith... Galatians 5: 22

When we submit to the love of God we have combined faith with love and have the power to fulfill the royal law, which is to love the Lord with all our heart, mind and soul... Mathew 22:37-39 If we keep the royal law James 2:8 we are being faithful and are perfecting faith by faithfullness... James 2:22 If we love God we will seek to please Him and keep the royal law because the royal law embraces Gods will and all of His commandments. Without love we can't fulfill the royal law because we can't love the Lord unless we have love. To manifest the love of God is to overcome sin, whereas to not manifest the love of God is to sin. For the royal law is not to know about the Lord, but to love the Lord... and to love one another as ourselves. We can't do one without the other, because we can't truly love God whom we can't see if we don't love mankind who is made in the image of God. When we love one another we are manifesting our love for God whom we can't see by loving His image. If we love one another then we also love God because we can't love the reflection without loving its source. And if we love God we will love Jesus Christ and allow Him to reign in our hearts, keepings all of His commandments John 14:21 by subduing the will and power of the flesh through the power of the Holy Spirit, so that faith working through love does the will of God by turning the thought into reality which pleases Him and fulfills the royal law...

Faith without love is incomplete, residing only in the mind as knowledge, and knowledge of Gods will alone can not perfect us by saving us from sin but allowing Jesus Christ to reign in our hearts. If knowledge of Gods will alone could save us then salvation would have been through the law of Moses or even a Christian law handed down by Jesus, and there would not have been any need for Christ to die for our sins Galatians 2:21 and dwell in our hearts. If Jesus reigns in our hearts then the love of Christ also reigns because He is the manifestation of Gods love. The heart without the love of God does not have Jesus Christ and the soul without the Spirit of Christ is not born again Romans 8:9 and cannot be perfected by being transformed into the likeness of Jesus Christ which is true salvation and the result of faith. But the soul which manifests the love of God has been washed clean by the Holy Spirit Romans 15:16 and manifests the spirit and glory of Jesus Christ...

Author: Simon Strahler
Published: 18 December 2003
Updated: 2 October 2006

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