Galatians 5:6 Explained: What “Faith Working Through Love” Really Means

Faith is the means by which believers overcome opposition, pressure, and adversity.

For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith (1 John 5:4 NKJV).

Who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword… (Hebrews 11:33-34 NKJV).

Faith does not deny reality; faith operates from heaven and stands victorious over it. Lions were real. Fire was real. Swords were real. But there was a greater reality at work: God’s promise. Faith doesn’t pretend problems aren’t there; faith declares that God and His Word are greater.

Faith Is How Believers Access God’ s Grace

Grace is God’s provision; faith is how it is accessed.

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand… (Romans 5:1-2 NKJV).

Grace does not function independently of faith. Grace has already supplied everything we need in Christ, but faith is what steps into it and stands in it. Faith doesn’t twist God’s arm; faith simply walks into what God opened.

From beginning to end, Scripture consistently presents faith as absolutely essential. Faith is required to be saved, to please God, to live righteously, to receive from Him, to walk daily, to overcome the world, and to endure until the end. Faith does not earn God’s favor; it receives what God has already provided. The Bible does not portray faith as optional or secondary—it is the way of life with God.

So very quickly, we have seen the need and importance of faith. It’s a big deal. It’s such a big deal that there has been a lot of much-needed teaching on faith. It is important to know how faith works and what faith can do. But here’s the danger: the moment you start looking at you and “your faith,” it’s over with; you will fail because you will be condemned.

You start thinking: Do I have enough faith? Is my faith strong enough? Did I say it enough times? Did I believe hard enough?

And suddenly the focus is no longer on Jesus, but on your effort to believe. When faith becomes about “how well you are believing,” you’ve already taken a step away from grace and into works.

All teaching of the Word must leave you looking at Jesus because that’s where you are perfect, complete, with nothing missing and nothing broken. This life that Jesus called you to live, He sent you into this world with everything you needed, including the faith of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law (Galatians 5:22-23 KJV).

Remember when we looked at the fruit of the Spirit earlier? These are certainly the fruit of the Holy Spirit, but these are also the fruit of you and me as born-again spirits. The trunk and the branch share the same life; the Spirit and your recreated spirit share the same nature.

As a result, these characteristics, traits, and qualities that naturally flow in God’s life are to flow through our lives too. These are not things that have to be worked for; these are what are already in us!

• We have no problem believing we have the love of God in us.

• We have no problem believing we can walk in the joy of the Lord.

• We have no problem believing we can walk in His peace and gentleness.

• We have no problem believing we can do good things like God.

But when it comes to faith? Get ready for all of the begging, pleading, and working to get more faith.

Isn’t it amazing how many people balk at the idea that we could have the faith of God? People act like it’s almost a blasphemous statement.

But look at the Scripture! We have the love of God. We have the joy of God. We have the peace of God. We also have the faith of God! Whose faith? God’s faith! You don’t have a second-rate, knockoff version of faith. You have His faith in you.

This is the same faith that created the universe. The same faith that spoke galaxies into existence. The same faith that moves mountains. The same faith that parts seas and calms storms. This is super-duper faith!

Do you know why people get stirred up and uncomfortable about this? Because there’s a little demon sitting beside them stirring them up against it. Do you know why? Because Satan knows how important faith is. He doesn’t care if you are nice to people and go around with a smile on your face; he does care if you start walking in the faith of God and thus expanding the Kingdom of God and tearing down the kingdom of darkness.

There are many nice people in the world who are doing nothing for God. Niceness is not what threatens hell—faith does. Faith that knows who it is in Christ, faith that knows what it carries, faith that knows it is using God’s own faith.

Because Satan knows faith is such a big deal and that this is how we walk in victory, he’s going to try to condemn you in the area of faith. Do you know how he has done it? By once again getting you to look at your performance instead of your perfection.

How many times have you heard the statement “Faith works by your love walk”?

If you grew up in church like me, I can’t even tell you the number of times I heard that. I was told numerous times, “If you aren’t walking in love, then your faith won’t work.” In other words, “God’s willingness to honor faith is dependent on how perfectly you are loving people today.”

You would think with that strong a statement, there would be a plethora of scripture to back it up, but there isn’t.

Some make that statement and then take people to the following verse in Galatians 5:6 (NKJV):

“For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love.”

Friend, where does Galatians 5:6 say faith works according to your “love walk”? Actually, where does it mention anything about you? You aren’t mentioned in this verse at all.

Let’s break this verse down.

First, there is more to this verse than just “faith working through love.” There is a preceding statement that is vitally important to giving context to faith works through love. What is the statement? “In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything.”

Notice only one person is mentioned in this verse, and it’s not you; it is Jesus. The phrase “in Christ Jesus” sets the whole context.

Second, Paul is saying that neither circumcision nor uncircumcision benefits anything. In other words, in Christ, your outward performance, your ability to keep rituals, your external religious acts, benefit you in no way when it comes to receiving anything from God. What does benefit you? Faith working through love.

The word work in the Greek is energeo, which means “to effect, display one’s activity, to be operative.” So the reason the first part of the statement is so vitally important is because the apostle Paul is telling you this is not about your performance. Third, this does not say faith works through your love walk. Can we just stop adding words and phrases to Scripture that are not there?

The Scripture says: faith working through love. Period. So again, the apostle Paul says that in Christ, this isn’t about what you do outwardly.

But what do people do in teaching about faith? They skip that statement and then misquote the rest by saying “faith works by your love walk” and thus go entirely against what the apostle Paul said in the same sentence!

Isn’t it amazing how we try so hard to turn things around from Jesus and back onto us?

Remember what the apostle Paul told the Galatians?

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? (Galatians 3:1-3 NKJV)

This is what we do. We start out in grace and then turn right back and move into works. We allow Jesus to free us from the jail cell, and then we turn around and walk back in, sit on the metal bench, and start trying to figure out how we can free ourselves.

We begin with “Jesus did it all,” and then quietly adopt, “But now it’s up to me.” We want to talk about faith, but base it on how good our love walk is.

Friend, that just doesn’t work, because it is works. The teaching of faith that puts the focus on you doesn’t work.

So let’s just use some common reasoning here. If faith works according to your love walk, at what point does your love walk get good enough for your faith to work? When does your love walk get good enough for your faith to work?

I’ve been waiting on a good response to that question from people for a very long time…and still waiting.

That’s a huge question, isn’t it?

Here is another question: Is your love walk perfect?

I don’t know about you, but my love walk can always use some improving! I would assume your love walk isn’t perfect either.

If our love walk isn’t perfect and yet our faith operates according to our love walk, friend, we are in a very bad spot! Do you see how foolish this is? The next time someone says to you, “Faith works according to your love walk,” ask, “When does my love walk get good enough for my faith to work?”

I guarantee they will look at you with a confused look because they are struggling to find a good answer. There will not be a good answer because anytime you start basing the things of God on your performance, you step into the land of grey, in which there is no answer.

The things of God are either righteousness or unrighteousness.

There is no somewhat righteousness. There is no “a little bit saved.”

It is one or the other.

The moment you start looking at yourself and basing things on your performance, it’s a slippery slope to which there is no end. When you base things on you, it gets complicated and leaves you frustrated. But when you base things on Jesus, it becomes simple again because He is perfect.