Heart to Heart

Faith That Works!

We all want our faith to work. But if we’re going to have faith that gets us the desires of our hearts—a faith that receives everything God has promised—then we must build on a foundation of love. In Galatians 5:6 the Apostle Paul wrote, “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love” (NIV 1984). In other words, “faith works by love.” We do not have love because we have faith—it’s the other way around.

My father, Kenneth E. Hagin, was a man of great faith. In fact, he’s known as the father of the modern-day faith message (though he never liked that title). At his memorial service, the thing that everybody talked about—more than anything else—was not his great faith but his love walk. Personally, I think his love walk was even greater than his faith life. He would never say anything against anybody. Instead, I heard him say again and again, “Putting out another man’s candle will not help yours burn any brighter.”

That’s the way my dad was! He had a great love walk, and because of that, he had a faith that always worked. Remember, faith works by love. Yes, making confessions of faith is good—we’ve got to do that—but if you stop and find out where you can love more, you will begin to see your faith work more for you. Do you want perfect faith? Learn to walk in love. Do you want guaranteed answers to your prayers? Learn to walk in love. God is love (1 John 4:8). He has imparted His love to us. And if we learn how to operate in the law of love, the law of faith will work in us, because faith works by love! I’m excited to share this issue of The Word of Faith with you. Be sure to check out the healing testimony from one of our current Rhema Bible Training Center students on page 9. And if you’d like to know more about the God-kind of love, don’t miss Dad’s article on page 7.