Ephesians 1:15-23, Part 1
How do you know if your faith in God is true faith?
In Ephesians 1:15-23, before Paul prays for the Christians, he describes true faith. When he describes true faith, I find it fascinating what Paul doesn’t say. He could have said,
“I see your faith because you gather for worship services.”
“I see your faith because you listen to the teaching the Bible.”
“I see your faith, because you are telling people about Jesus.”
“I see your faith because you pray.”
Paul doesn’t say any of that. What does he say?
Notice the first three words Paul writes in verse 15, “For this reason…”
For what reason? The reason is what Paul just wrote in the previous verses we talked about last week. Here’s a one-sentence summary: In verses 3 through 14, Paul is praising God for God’s rich blessings that he has lavished on us. For that reason. For what God did, and for what God is still doing, which is choosing us in Christ. For that reason, Paul describes true faith:
“For that reason,” Paul writes, “ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.”
Paul is saying, “I see you Christians! I hear about you. I know what you are up to! And you have true faith! I know you have true faith because of your love for all God’s people.”
That’s an important description. Faith and love. Faith without love is no faith. You cannot be said to have faith if you do not also love. You can have beliefs, ideas in your mind. But faith shows itself to be true by its actions. If you have genuine faith, you will love.
I’m not saying that your love has to be perfect. God doesn’t expect perfection. But when you have real faith, God’s love will flow out of your life. It might be a love that needs work. It might need to grow.
In fact all of us need to work on our love, right? We humans have such a tendency to self-focus, selfishness, self-protection, self-everything. We naturally focus on our selves. To overcome that selfishness, love takes works, practice. To love is to be other-focused, which is often a lot like paddling upstream, as loving others well goes against our natural human selfishness.
But when we have faith in God, we have a whole new resource on which to grow love. More on that in a moment.
So if faith without love is no faith at all, what about love without faith? Is that possible?
Love is amazing in and of itself. Anyone, no matter their faith, can love. People who claim to have no faith at all can still love, and they regularly do, sometimes even better than those who say they have faith. Love is just so good it doesn’t need faith.
But when love is based on faith in God the father, God the Son, and God the Spirit, that love is based on the source of love. God himself is love. When we faith in God, we learn how to love from God.
Therefore, while I think love anywhere it found is good, love can be amplified and perfected when it is based on God, following God’s love. When love is based on God, it has a regular source of renewal and energy. We can continue to give love freely when we are refilling our hearts with the love of God.
That love is exactly what Paul sees in these Christians he is writing. He sees them placing their faith on God, and then allowing God’s love to flow through them to others.
It is quite important, then, for us to evaluate our faith, not by its intellectual content, not by its ritual practices (like attendance at worship services or prayer meetings), but by how we love one another. Jesus taught his disciples “By this all will know that you are my disciples, that you love one another.” (John 13:33-34)
Loving one another doesn’t mean that you need to be best friends with everyone, even everyone in your church family, even if that church family is small in number. It is quite normal for there to be a variety of levels in relationships. Usually, we humans are very close to only a few people, and then we typically have lots of acquaintances of varying closeness. Relationship levels often change over time, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for bad reasons. People move away. Get new jobs. A brokenness happens. You drift apart. Of course, as people who love one another, we work to repair brokenness, but even after forgiveness has been given, sometimes boundaries in relationships are needed and good.
Paul’s point is clear: We are primarily to be people who are known for our love. What does that kind of love look like? It more than being polite. It is more than being friendly. Love will be patient, kind, sacrificial, caring. Love is forgiving. Looks out for the other’s best. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8) Love’s perspective is for the other and what they might need. When you are loving toward someone they will feel loved.
After encouraging the people about their love, in verse 17 Paul begins his prayer for them. We’ll learn about that in the next post.
Photo by Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash
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