FAITH AND LOVE

The Holy Spirit, in many Bible passages, links faith with love.

"The only thing that counts is faith
expressing itself through Love."
Gal 5:6 NIV

The Great Mandate of the Lord Jesus -
the single, boiled-down, essential command -
is . . . Love.

The Law of the Old Testament was satisfied in Jesus.
But He left us with the Royal Law,
the Simple (but impossible) Command to Love.

In that obedience Faith grows. Increase your faith?
Ask for Love - not human love -
but Divine Love to fill your heart.
Fervent Love.
Unconditional Love.

Without God's Love, faith - even if great - loses its
eternal value.

". . . if I have all faith; so as to remove mountains,
but do not have love, I am nothing." I Cor. 13:2b

I am nothing . . . .

The Bible ties faith to love, but . . .
we separate faith unto itself
and make it the ultimate goal. Why?
Because we want power.
We see faith as power.
Humanity wants "to move mountains,"
and by that, to be Somebody!
But with spectacular mountain-moving faith, in the
absence of Love, "I am Nothing"
instead of Somebody.

Our God of Ardent Love values Love
above all other spiritual verities.
Even faith.
We must also.

"And now abide faith, hope, love, these three;
but the greatest of these is love."
I Cor. 13:13
 
For the very reason of our self-exaltation,
faith cannot operate
without the Love of Abba Father.

Faith that pleases God has Love as its goal
Love gives Faith . . .
its Humility of Meaning
Love makes faith a Servant rather than a
religious master.

Faith without Love is the stimulus of Pride.
Faith pleases man.
Love pleases God.
And Love with Faith is the satisfaction
of His Fullness.

To pray for Love is to be answered with Faith.
Love's essence is to believe
in God's All-Covering Love.

Knowledge puffs up but love builds up.
I Cor. 8:1 NIV

THE VOICE

Reading: Matthew 13; Luke 8:11-18; John 15

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.
Romans 10:17

FAITH does come by hearing - the personal Voice of God.
Humanity must live by "every word that
proceeds out of the mouth of God." (Matt. 4:4)

To live by faith is to live by hearing!
By subjecting every life-quandary to the Voice of God
with no other solution than to Hear
the words from His mouth.

Faith doesn't come by mere study of scripture
but by hearing the Author of scripture
target it personally to you.

Real-Faith must hear from God's mouth.
And that requires seeking His face.

Jesus lived by God's Voice, only His Voice
with no other counsel or remedy.
And by that Voice He was prepared to
answer His Mortal Enemy
and render him powerless
in the wilderness trial!

When Eve stopped listening to her Creator,
she listened to His enemy.

We are listeners. We live by listening.
The question is not "how to listen?"
We know how to listen.
All too well.

The question is: to whom do you listen?
There are only three choices.

Humanity is always in a state of hearing from another realm,
that realm is of spirit.

The Evil Voice speaks as though it were your own thoughts,
it either exalts or condemns . . . both being lies.
That "inner talk" projects disaster.

God speaks of things foreign, outside our familiar degradation.
He shares simply . . . the Utmost Truth.
And the Future Good.

God's Voice is living. It creates what is spoken!
The Words carry the Life of the One who speaks them.

To hear is to live. And to be "created" into the idea of the Voice.
His Voice imparts the faith of its own fulfillment.
So . . . to deeply hear, to Hear, is to Believe! 

God's Word is a seed, not a thought.
Not an idea, a principle or a notion. These are dead.
Merely food to fatten the brain,
no nourishment for the inner being.

His words are of an entirely different nature and origin
than our own. They are True.
They are Reality, the Only Reality. The ONLY REALITY!

His words are certain . . . absolute . . . unassailable.
Our words are tenuous . . . may be true, may not be true.

His thoughts are Living Pictures - not imagination -
and when spoken or seen,
by the mystery of His power
dwelling within His Words, carry reproductive Life.

Humanity produces dead-thought and
twirls them into witless talk.
In all the deluge of words spewed from busy "thinking" and
poured into the earth every day,
God's voice alone bears Life.

The Divine Seed of His Quiet Words is a tiny grain that
harbors Explosive Life.
Heart food of Enormous Reproduction.

He speaks to the godly and the ungodly.
He proclaims His Words by a
constant offering of His Exquisite Thoughts.

His Words are plentiful, by the generosity of
His Father-heart.
He is "Wonderful Counselor."

No problem with God speaking. He speaks.
He is the Farmer scattering His precious Seed.

Look at a seed and you see a speck.
But to grasp the wonder of seed is to see its
unending fruit.
Seed making seeds to more seed . . . into forever.

Seed must have its environment.
The seed's potential
depends on its home.

On the shelf, unplanted it lies dormant.
On the hard clay it dies by the sun,
picture of the hard heart.
Seed is food for birds of the air,
symbol of the demonic. 

The seed's possibility rests entirely on the soil.
Life or death lie in the condition of the soil.

And that is MINE to prepare.
The stone of my sin nature must be culled.
The weeds of my sins must be pulled.
Deep must be my integrity of telling the truth
in secret.

When the scripture becomes the Word by His Personal Voice
into your life, just stare at it.
Let that Word have you, take you, enter you.

And when the Seed of His Voice is planted in
your spirit it meets a ready place in the darkness
of your secret heart
to release itself into an entirely new life.

The nurture of holding that seed
by the value of its Source and His Power,
watered by scripture, buried in prayer,
- with the patience of the farmer -
that Word/Seed is set free to
release its Creative Energy and
"bears fruit and produces, some a hundred fold,
some sixty, some thirty."

Are you rich soil?
Are you pregnant with His voice?
Are you a garden planted?
Are you filled with seeds of promise,
nurtured by the daily watering of the Word?

Then faith will grow as easily and miraculously
as fruit that simply appears on the healthy vine.

Copyright © 2000 Martha Kilpatrick