Gal. 5:6 [King James]
For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.
Gal. 5:4-6 [Message]
I suspect you would never intend this, but this is what happens. When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you are cut off from Christ, you fall out of grace. Meanwhile we expectantly wait for a satisfying relationship with the Spirit. For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love.
Gal. 5:6 [God's Word]
As far as our relationship to Christ Jesus is concerned, it doesn’t matter whether we are circumcised or not. But what matters is a faith that expresses itself through love.
Gal. 5:6 [ Amplified]
For [if we are] in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith activated and energized and expressed and working through love.
As we read various translations of Gal. 5:6 we find a strong thread to living a successful Christian life.
Faith's stranded strength is Love
As we read through God's written Word we find this common yarn ... Love!
- I John 4:8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
- I John 4:16 And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.
It is only when we put our focus on love that we are truly looking to God. To say we know God and hate our brother we lie.
- I John 4:20
If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?
If religion is separating you from loving people (all people), I say with the resounding Words of Paul ...
"O YOU poor and silly and thoughtless and unreflecting and senseless Galatians! Who has fascinated or bewitched or cast a spell over you, unto whom--right before your very eyes--Jesus Christ (the Messiah) was openly and graphically set forth and portrayed as crucified?" ~ Gal. 3:1 [Amplified]
Jesus crucified ... for love's sake [the very cause of Love ~ John 3:16], and yet people can so quickly allow someones wrong agendas; someones erred spirit beliefs; someones bitterness of heart; someones ability to manipulate for power or prestige or deceptive view carry them away from truth that sets and keeps them free.
In the eighth chapter of the gospel of John we find religion desiring to snuff out Jesus ... God (love/Word) made flesh walking among them. The one who for later would lay down his own life ... saying while suffering an agonizing death on a cross "Father forgive them, they know not what they do." He also at this same life striping time, offered forgiveness and freedom to another mans ... liberating him to a life beyond the pain of sin and death. A privilege offered to whosoever is will receive Jesus at his Word.
- Love sent Jesus and empowered Him to live successfully here on planet earth.
- Love enabled Him to make it through the death of the cross, and then resurrected him from the dead.
- Love defeated death, hell and the grave, and then ascended to make a way for us and send one (spirit) just like his own to empower us to be a witness of such love.
We know from the written Word, that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Faith, the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things yet unseen. And Faith we understand is what pleases God. But without love ... that pleasing faith will remain inoperative and ineffective until it is activated (motorized) by love.
The reason I used the verb motorized here, is love should be the very essence of what motivates, energizes, and moves us in every endeavor of life. If love was truly allowed to be the active ingredient within the heart of mankind, there would be no abortion, adultery, fornication, fighting, wars, robberies, or malice of any kind.
Love is the very source of the spiritual fruit of ... joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: of which there is no law! ~ Gal. 5:22-23
The message translation says it well.
What happens when we live God's way?
He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—
Things like:
- affection for others
- exuberance about life
- serenity
We develop:
- a willingness to stick with things
- a sense of compassion in the heart
- a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people.
We find ourselves:
- involved in loyal commitments
- not needing to force our way in life
- able to marshal and direct our energies wisely
Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way.
We can say this from this passage's translation. When we open to love, we begin to both develop (mature) and find ourselves.
I Cor. 13 shares some interesting truths about love.
- Love never gives up
- Love cares more for others than for self
- Love doesn't want what it doesn't have
- Love doesn't strut
- Doesn't have a swelled head
- Doesn't force itself on others
- Isn't always "me first"
- Doesn't fly off the handle
- Doesn't keep score of the sins of others
- Doesn't revel when others grovel
- Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth
- Puts up with anything
- Trusts God always
- Always looks for the best
- Never looks back
- But keeps going to the end
As we read in I Cor. 13 we find in verse 11 the expression of anyone or anything that tries to undermine true love, or over ride the truth of the God kind of faith is acting in an immature manner.
I admonish you today ...
Have the God kind of faith, and let your Faith be motorized by Love!
