A Foundation Of Love

A Foundation of Love

This hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us. Romans 5:5

PURE FAITH IS HARD TO COME BY. We grow up in a world of skepticism, and doubt is deeply ingrained in our thought patterns. The size of our faith may not be at stake, but the quality of it is. Scripture repeatedly calls us to the kind of faith that moves mountains and makes all things possible.

If you’ve had trouble maintaining faith, examine your foundation. Everything in the Christian life is to be built on a foundation of love, and for hearts that have been wounded by rejection and distorted love, that’s a problem. We’ve been let down and disappointed and beaten up by a fallen world and all its dysfunctions. We’ve let key ingredients of faith and hope go missing, and it’s impossible to have deep, overflowing, consistent faith without hope and anticipation. Likewise, it’s impossible to have hope apart from the security and certainty of love. You have to know how loved you are.

Without that foundation of love, you will inevitably find yourself wondering if God’s words to you are reliable, if he is guiding and shaping your thoughts and perspectives faithfully, if he is going to hold you up throughout the trials and troubles of this faith journey, and—at the most fundamental level—if he is really good to you. Most of us know these things intellectually, but few of us hold them deeply in our hearts. Our wounds linger, and our perception of God is affected by them. Only when those wounds are thoroughly healed and redeemed by his love can we build a life of consistent hope and faith.

Love is your foundation, so make every effort to cultivate it and grow in it. Perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18), and fear is the enemy of faith. When you know you are loved, your faith grows purer and stronger. You rest in the security of your Father’s assurances, and your heart is free to believe again. Your foundation can support a life of bold, unyielding, enduring faith.

The chains of love are stronger than the chains of fear.