Galatians 41It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
2Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. 3Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. 4You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. 5But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. 6For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.I thoroughly enjoyed reading that passage this morning! But one thing kind of suprised me in a way. I think so often due to the great legacy left to us in the Reformed Church by people like Luther who rediscovered "righteousness by faith", etc we are certain in our minds that faith in Christ alone is what counts. However, when reading the passage above this morning my attention was caught by the last sentence and particularly the last four words of that sentence i.e. the only thing that counts is faith
expressing itself through love. I guess I have never thought much about this before. We know that the only thing that counts is faith but I think I would usually stop there.
Faith is not a cold, passionless thing. The object of our faith is also the lover of our souls. Faith expresses itself through love. Primarily love for God but also love for His people and for the lost. I pray that my faith would be a living, loving, praising, obedient faith!
