When we think of February, many of us think of the celebration of love during Valentine’s Day. Billions will be spent on exchanging gifts as an expression of one’s love for another. The premise of giving as an expression of love can be highlighted in 1 Corinthians 13:5 and John 3:16.
“God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only son so that whoever believes in him may not be lost, but have eternal life.”
John 3:16 (NCV)
1 Corinthians 13:5 (NCV) states that “Love is not selfish,” and John 3:16 demonstrates that the ultimate expression of love is giving. God gave His very best during a time when many didn’t care about Him, believe in Him, or want anything to do with Him. He loved all the world’s past, present, and future generations so much that He was willing to be constant in the demonstration of His love and express it through giving. God not only gave His best, but He also gave Himself. When He gave His Son, Jesus, to pay the price for the sins of humanity, He was giving a piece of Himself since He (the Father) and Jesus (His Son) were One (John 17:21) so that mankind would reap the benefit of that gift. Now, that is the God-kind of love.
Although the world may not fully understand the God-kind of love, those who decide to love like that prefer others and seek to put their needs and wants ahead of their own. Depending on our mood and situation, this can be easy or very challenging. Have you ever found yourself feeling good, full of joy, and seeking an opportunity to be kind and help someone with some extra resources you may have at the time? In those instances, it’s easy (and even enjoyable) to put someone else’s needs and desires ahead of yours. But how do we respond when money is tight, our schedules are jammed, and we feel like crawling into a hole and having a pity party? It’s during those times our love walk is tested. Can we continue to walk in love like God does?
You see, since the God-kind of love is constant, is not selfish, and gives, we should strive to live our lives in a manner that emulates that. We should try to live our lives each day in a manner that puts others first and gives them our very best especially when it’s inconvenient and even costs us to sacrifice some time, money, and even our perspective so that they can benefit from the gift of our love.
Again, this is much easier said than done. As we follow Jesus, we spend our days here on earth growing and developing His love lifestyle.
Oh, but if we could only grasp the power available when we choose to live this way consistently. You see, Galatians 5:6 reveals that our faith works by love. That means that our ability to live by faith on this side of Heaven requires that we walk in biblical love.
In other words, love powers our faith. It’s what causes our faith to work. Romans 1:17 tells us that “the just shall live by faith.” God calls us to navigate our lives by the power of faith. Faith is not only just believing in God and believing His Word, but it’s also acting on the Word of God to release the power that’s in that Word and bring that Word to pass. Did you catch that?
Unlocking Victory
The Word of God is alive and full of power. When we choose to not only believe that Word but also be doers of it, to put it into practice, and to make it our lifestyle, our faith releases the power of the Word of God to bring it to pass.
Faith can be powerful, and God gave it to us to help us overcome the problems we face in life. 1 John 5:4 tells us that as God’s people, we are designed and destined to overcome the challenges of this world; however, that verse goes on to say our faith gives us victory.
We see several instances in the Bible where Jesus explained that it was ‘according to their faith’ that they received their healing and victory. Notice He didn’t say that it was according to His desire, His power, or even His deity that caused the power of God to be released into their lives. It was their faith!
Faith can be powerful and it can completely change your life, but it’s how we choose to love (prefer) others that determines how powerful and effective our faith can be.
Love is the power source of our faith, and since victory in this life requires faith, and faith is powered by love, then we can see that our love walk plays a significant role in how much victory we’ll get to enjoy.
This is so significant that I believe it’s necessary to state it again but in a more simplistic way.
Our victory requires our faith. Our faith is powered by love.
Therefore, our victory is determined by how we walk in love.
Not coincidentally, though, we need victory the most when we are tempted to be the most selfish, withhold aid and assistance from others, and withdraw and isolate to focus on our own problems.
We see this demonstrated in 1 Kings 17. There was a drought and famine in the land, and the Lord instructed Elijah to go to Zarephath, where He had instructed a widow to supply him with food. When Elijah arrived, he saw her at the town gate gathering sticks and asked her for a drink of water and a piece of bread. Her response is very telling. She explains that she doesn’t have any bread and was gathering a few sticks to build a fire to make one last cake for her and her son from the last of the flour and oil that she had; after that, her expectation was that they would both die from starvation.
Now, most of us have plenty of problems and difficult situations in our lives, but I would venture a guess that very few of us have found ourselves in this dire of a circumstance.
Based on her response, she’s clearly lost all hope, and her perspective is that this is her and her son’s last meal, and they’re about to die. Would you agree that she needs victory in this moment? Since she requires victory, we know that she needs faith based on 1 John 5:4. Also, it’s clear that she needs her faith to be powerful and effective to overcome this seemingly impossible situation. Therefore, she must walk in love and prefer others for their benefit. But she’s afraid and in self-preservation mode, trying to hoard what little bit she has left. That’s not love; therefore, there’s no faith at work in her life, so victory isn’t possible as long as she remains in this mindset.
Elijah recognizes this and addresses it. He needs to get her out of fear and self-preservation and into faith, so he instructs her to go ahead and make the meal but makes one minor adjustment; give him a little bit first. Notice the word “first.” By getting her to put others first, he gets her to resist the fear and operate in love. Now, he also needs to get her to change her perspective and perceived outcome so she can be in faith. To do so, he speaks a Word from God that not only presents a different outcome than the one she was planning but also makes faith available since Romans 10:17 tells us that faith comes by hearing the Word of God. Elijah tells her that if she resists the fear and chooses to put the prophet first, then God will multiply the flour and oil. This combination of putting others first (love) and believing that God could change her expected outcome so she’d respond to the Word of God (faith) would cause the power of God to be released and manifested in her life. She did just that, and her act of love and sacrificial obedience caused the Word of God to come to pass, and she, Elijah, and her house did eat for many days. Talk about a complete turnaround! This victory stemmed from her choosing to overcome the fear that caused her to operate in selfishness and to walk in love by acting on the Word of God and putting someone’s needs first.
I can relate to the widow woman in this passage. I experienced something similar during Hurricane Milton this past October. Typically, our family chooses to hunker down and ride out the storm. However, this particular Hurricane was predicted to be a Category 5, and the eye of the storm was set to make landfall right over our neighborhood. As you can imagine, fear tried to flood our hearts and minds with images of death and destruction all around us. For this particular storm, we decided as a family that we should evacuate to the panhandle of Florida. Stores around us were running out of supplies, gas stations were out of fuel, and we had a 4-6 hour drive on jammed-packed highways to get out of the path of this hurricane.
Thankfully, we had prepared with several gas cans of fuel, a generator, and an extra supply of food. When we returned home, we were beyond grateful to the Lord that our home didn’t sustain any damage when so many around us had experienced devastation. Even after our electricity returned, many of our friends and neighbors were without power for a week or more. This means they needed fuel to keep their generators running (if they had one), but gasoline was hard to come by, and lines were hours and hours long. The temptation was great to hoard the resources that we had. The doubts, fears, and questions flooded our minds. What if our electricity went back out and we needed our generator? If it did, we’d also need the extra cans of fuel that we had stored up. What if the stores didn’t re-stock, and we needed all our food? I was stunned at how strong that temptation was for us to be selfish and stay in self-preservation mode.
Thankfully, we had been walking with the Lord long enough to recognize and resist this tactic of the adversary and that we needed to do the opposite of how we felt. We resisted those thoughts, images, and emotions. We chose to lend out our generator to a family that needed one, along with our cans of fuel, to a couple of families so they could keep their generators running. We made space in our fridges/freezers for a family who needed to store some food to keep it from spoiling since their electricity hadn’t been restored, and we invited another family to do their laundry at our house. October is still extremely hot in Florida, so we asked our daughter’s teenage friends to hang out, sleep over, and shower since we had air conditioning. I don’t share this to brag about what we did but rather as an attempt to paint a picture of how we, too, were tempted to focus on ourselves and our own needs in a desperate time and had to overcome the fear and thoughts of self-preservation so we could do our best to demonstrate the God-kind of love with the resources that God had given to us.
God has designed love to be the source of power to our faith, which causes the Word of God to come to pass in our lives. We can’t afford to dilute love to a fickle emotion that waivers based on circumstances. God is love (1 John 4:8), and love chooses to put the needs of others first, even when it’s inconvenient. It’s not always easy, but it is always possible with God, and that type of love consistently working in our lives will bring transformation and lasting change in our lives and in the communities around us.
What would our world look like if everyone chose the biblical lifestyle of love? We’d all be walking in victory and living our best lives possible. I believe that is God’s will for each of us, and it sounds like Heaven to me.
Feature Image: Powerful heart GENAI Text to Image; Bible, GoDaddy stock photo | Scripture taken from the (NCV) New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
