I've seen a trend in Christianity over the last decade. I'm sure that it's been around much longer, but that's about when I noticed it. God has become the God of Love. God loves you and wants to bless you. God's crazy about you. Love God, love others. I love Jesus. Love wins. It goes on and on. Yes, God loves us. Yes, God loves us in such a way that He sent Jesus to come and die for us, that we could have forgiveness of sins. Yes, the Law can be summed up as "Love God, love others."
Where does faith fit into the equation? Does love get us into heaven? The answer is that we need faith in Christ. "For by grace you have been saved through faith" (Eph 2:8). We are also justified by faith, not love. I think that often we act as though the two are equivalent, but they are not. Faith is the key ingredient in salvation for which we are responsible (Rom 3:25). There is the "righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe." (Rom 3:22). Why doesn't faith get preached as much as love? I would guess in part that love is a much more popular topic, at least in the US. Love panders to our sense of self-importance. God loves me, He wants me to love Him. We can also read our distortions of love into the relationship, which is harder to do with faith. We claim that God will understand when we fall in and out of love, the ebb and flow that pervades our lives. Perhaps faith conjures up a more consistent image of what we're called to do and be.
