THIS IS WHY YOUR FAITH IS WEAK AND INEFFECTIVE

 
- By Gavin Aleogho
 
For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.
Galatians 5:6 KJV
 
One of the struggles of most Christians is in the area of faith. Many believers are still struggling to exercise faith in God, despite the fact that they’ve been in the faith for a long time.
 
One of the reasons for this problem is that a lot of people are yet to come to a full understanding of God’s love for them. For the more you know that God loves you, the more you are confident to exercise faith in God. When you are firmly established in the love that God has for you, your faith in God will become strong, producing results.
 
A lot of people know that God loves them. But such knowledge is only theoretical; it is not experiential knowledge. You must bring yourself to the level where you know beyond reasonable doubt that God loves you. You must accept and embrace God’s love. It is only an experiential knowledge of God’s love that can boost your faith.
 
When you are able to embrace the full measure of God’s love, you won’t have a problem exercising faith in God. Then, it won’t matter to you what the challenges or situation is, you will be rest assured that the God who loves you will take care of the situation.
 
This is my counsel to you. Instead of spending time studying faith, I will counsel you to, first of all, take time studying the love that God has for you. Then you will be able to understand the subject of faith better. A diligent study on the subject of faith without accurate knowledge of the love of God will make your faith ineffective.
 
The major reason why we easily lose faith in God is simply because we are yet to be firmly established in the love that God has for us. We don’t understand the depth of God’s love for us. However, when we know that God loves us beyond any doubt, our faith becomes stronger, even in the face of obstacles and the challenges of life.
 
You have to get yourself to the point where you know that God really loves you. If you can bring yourself to understand the depth of God’s love, you will not have a problem with the issue of faith.
 
Presently, this is how I live my life. Despite the happenings around me, I am not moved. It was not like this some years ago. Is it because I have suddenly developed faith? Not really! I have had faith right from when I gave my life to Christ, more than 25 years ago. For everyone who is born again is impacted with a measure of faith by God (Romans 12:3c).
 
Sadly, my faith was not strong enough to believe God in those days. This is because I was ignorant of how much God loves me. Yes, I knew that God loved me “theoretically,” but it was not practical or experiential.
 
And not until I begin to understand the depth of God’s love for me (I am not talking about God’s love for you or the world, but a personal love of God for me, Gavin Aleogho). Not until then, my faith was weak and ineffective.
 
Praise God, now I have come to know that God loves me and that He is very mindful of me. It is a discovery that is still ongoing, though. The thought of God’s love alone has helped me to boost my faith in God. There won’t be faith if love is absent. We can only have faith because there is a God who loves us.
 
My beautiful daughter, EtseOghena, is very confident in the fact that I and her mom love her. Even though she sometimes makes ridiculous requests, which we often turn down, she still believes that if we really want to meet her request, we will do that. Even when we say no to her request, she believes that we have a cogent reason for our decision.
 
I said all this to let you know the degree of trust that our daughter has in us. She does not doubt the fact that we love her.
 
Does my daughter need to go and study more about faith to get something from me?
 
No.
 
As a matter of fact, as it stands today, my daughter, who is just 7, does not understand the concept of faith. But the fact that she knows that I love her settles all that faith is needed for. This is how God, your Father, wants you to relate with Him.
 
EtseOghena usually asks me for things with confidence that I will give her what she needs.
 
What is fueling her confidence to ask me?
 
Is it because she has “big” faith?
 
No.
 
At her age, she doesn't even know what faith is.
 
Etse’s confidence to ask is simply because she knows that her father loves her.
I am using this illustration to show you how vital LOVE is and how it can help your faith become strong and effective.
 
The fact that I love EtseOghena directly fuels her confidence (faith) that I will respond positively to her.
 
In the same vein, when it comes to trusting God to intervene in our lives, we don’t need more faith but more knowledge of God’s love. The more you grow in the fact that God loves you, the more your faith grows and becomes strong in the Lord.
 
If you can settle it in your heart that God loves you, you will not have a problem trusting Him to intervene in your life. If you have a deep revelation of God’s love for you, you won’t be perturbed by the happenings around you. You will be confident in the fact that because God loves you, He will definitely intervene in the situation you are going through. For the more of God’s love we are established in, the more of God’s fullness we experience.
 
That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.
Ephesians 3:17-19
 
©Gavin Aleogho