You can be strong in faith but missing something crucial. The answer for incomplete faith is love.
In one of the best known chapters of the Bible, the Love Chapter, the apostle Paul writes a shocking truth about faith. “If I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2 [ESV here and elsewhere]).
If the Word of God says you are nothing, that should get your attention. Faith that can remove mountains seems like something significant; but God says if the person exercising this faith does not have the loving motive of seeking the good of others, then he is nothing. Thus his faith somehow misses its divine purpose. His faith is powerful but misguided, powerful but in the end producing nothing of lasting importance.
The fix for incomplete faith
Therefore, according to this verse, faith and love must be connected. Faith needs to be exercised with love.
It is not that faith cannot do anything without love. Paul says hypothetically that an unloving person can have enough faith to move mountains.
So there is more to faith than getting results; there is getting results for the right reason. Without that, even great faith is flawed. And if it is flawed, it will not be established. Our goal is to be established in faith.
So if you want to be established in faith, if you want to have enduringly strong faith, if you want to have faith that can move not only one mountain but many mountains, then you also need to be a loving person. A Christian who does not love others in a Christlike way has a flaw both in character and faith that will in one way or another negate the good fruits of that faith in the long run.
At least three other passages in the New Testament also make a connection between faith and love.
Galatians 5:6
In Galatians the apostle Paul argues at length against the idea that to be saved a person must not only believe in Jesus but also be circumcised and keep the law of Moses. As Paul nears the end of the letter, he sums up his argument: “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love” (Galatians 5:6).
What counts is faith working through love. That sounds like what we saw above in 1 Corinthians 13. But here Paul is not talking about faith that moves mountains; rather, he refers to saving faith—belief in the gospel message. When a person sincerely believes that message, he or she will follow Jesus’s teaching to love God and people.
Still, although the application differs, we again see that faith and love are related. Faith needs to issue in love.
James 2:14–26
James 2:14–26 makes the case that “faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (v. 17).
Again, if God tells you that your faith is dead, that should get your attention. Something that is dead is flawed. Selah. Dead faith is missing something.
James says what dead faith is missing is works, and by works he explicitly has in mind loving works: “ 14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?” (vv. 14–16)
Later in this section it says, “Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” (v. 18)
Two verses later, “Faith apart from works is useless” (v. 20).
Referring to Abraham, the father of all who believe, James says, “You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works” (v. 22).
Although James never uses the word love in this passage, he clearly has love in view. Like Galatians 5:6 above, James is referring to faith that saves the soul, not the faith that moves mountains through prayer, but the point is still that faith is related to love. It is in fact “completed” by love. Such faith finds and fulfills its purpose.
Is faith that moves mountains similar to faith that saves one’s soul? Are both “completed” by love? First Corinthians 13:2, which we examined at the outset, suggests they are.
James 4:3
Later in his epistle, James talks about people whose faith apparently is flawed. He says they are praying, but their prayers are not being answered. James 4:3 says, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.”
In other words, they are praying and I assume believing, but their conduct is marked by the absence of love. Here is the contentious context: James 4:1–3 says, “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? 2 You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.”
They are being utterly selfish. So this is a concrete example of unloving behavior that negates faith.
Can people pray and believe God for something yet be completely selfish? Certainly. People pray for what they want. Sometimes people want things for good and godly reasons; sometimes people want something for selfish and unloving reasons. Faith is established when it is completed by good, godly, and loving motives.
Takeaway
This strong connection between faith and love suggests that if I want to have great faith I also need to obey our Lord’s command to have great love (Mark 12:30–31).
If your faith is not working, could it be that you are regularly relating to one or more people in an unloving way? Could it be that your faith is flawed by selfishness, greed, pride, selfish ambition?
The pure motive of love for God and people leads to a completed faith that God delights to bless.
Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (ESV)