Christian Living

FAITHFUL WORKS

by paul hoffmaster
10/29/17
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Many Christians believe that attending church weekly is an evidence of their faith.  By publicly joining other believers in communal worship, they see themselves as a “registered saint.”  Church attendance is important to the Believer, but it is not an evidence of spiritual rebirth.  To believe that regular church attendance illustrates one’s spiritual identity is to be deceived.

 Faith is not a place of identity, but a belief based on the accepting of God’s Word.  Salvation is acquired by faith and not by works.  Accepting Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord is experienced through faith and faith alone.

 Problems arise when the thought process promotes the idea that salvation faith is all that is necessary.  Some think that once a person is saved, all they have to do is punch their once a week church “time card,” and put their “silent” offering into the collection plate, and all is well.  The next attention getter is the rapture or their pre death ritual.  Once again, the deception ploy is released.

 After experiencing saving Faith, every Believer is given a “measure of faith” (Romans 12:3) so as to begin to build his life around God’s Word.  James tells us that we must be “doers of the word, and not hearers only…” (James 1:22)  What he is saying is that if we don’t put works behind our post salvation faith, we have deceived ourselves.  To sit in a church and hear the Word of God and then return home with no thought of what to do with the message is to miscalculate the results of the inaction.  James parallels a man looking into a mirror with someone who is inactive with the Word.  When the man stops looking at himself in the mirror, he immediately forgets what he looked like.  It is like a Believer that hears the Word, but he forgets the message as soon as he leaves the church.  The blessed individual is the one who sees and hears the Word and then does something with the It.  The Bible says that man will be “blessed in what he does.” (James 1:23-25)

 Inactive Believers are like a fig tree that claims to have fruit, but upon closer observation, there is no evidence of that fruit. (Mark 11:13)  It is one thing to say you are a Believer, but it is another thing to show the evidence of your confession.  

 When we don’t build our faith through works, our post salvation faith will be in title only; it is basically useless (dead). (James 2:17)  If Believers would put actions with their faith, the challenges of life would be stepping stones to victory.