Galatians 5:6 — “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”
It seems to me that one of the most consequential and confusing interpretations bible students make in bible study is to water down the relationship between what I’m going to call being an object and being an agent of God's helpfulness.
Everything in the Christian life begins with being an object of God’s helpfulness. That is to say, we cannot pass on that which we do not have. So to help others in any spiritually significant way means we must first experience that help ourselves.
So only as we are objects of God's help can we be agents of God's help. However, if we are not agents of God's help in this world then it is self-deception if we think we’ve taken to heart the help God has been to us. One of the trademarks of having absorbed God's ever free and superabundant help is that we can no longer live with ourselves if we do not simultaneously become agents of his helpfulness.
In the more classical wording of what I’ve said, it seems to me that to differentiate between faith and works in such a way that either of them can stand alone and still count with God is shortsighted. The only kind of faith that saves is the kind of faith that expresses itself in love.
In other words, you can only know that God has helped you enter into a restored friendship with himself by how readily and eagerly you want to work with him in being an agent of his helpfulness.
