What Specific Acts People Perform are Good-Works? Please be Specific.
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D
How can you do anything good without first being saved?
Jesus explained good.
Mark 12:30-31 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Anything apart from that is loving self above God or others. Basically what we always do apart from God, even when we do something nice for someone else. (We do it to feel good.)
So how can good works be a matter of salvation, since they won't ever happen until after we're saved?
Jesus explained good.
Mark 12:30-31 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Anything apart from that is loving self above God or others. Basically what we always do apart from God, even when we do something nice for someone else. (We do it to feel good.)
So how can good works be a matter of salvation, since they won't ever happen until after we're saved?
Your question is a bit cryptic, so forgive me if I have not interpreted it correctly...
Anything which a person does ostensibly to benefit others may be classed as 'good works'. Whether it is giving, volunteering, working below your income capacity or choosing a lifestyle below what you could afford so that you can help others, etc., it is all 'good works'.
A Christian who does good works (hopefully) does them out of a sense of thankfulness to God, not to gain His favour. According to James 2, if one claims salvation by faith, but does nothing to demonstrate that faith, that person's faith is incomplete. Likewise, James 1 states that pure and faultless religion includes looking after widows and orphans in their distress.
Some people wrongly think that by doing good works, they can make themselves acceptable to God. Or, in a similar manner, they do good works to balance out their bad deeds, and hopefully come out 'ahead'. That is works-salvation, which is not consistent with Christianity. People who try to earn their salvation are actually offensive to God, because they are rejecting the blood of Christ as an acceptable sacrifice.
Anything which a person does ostensibly to benefit others may be classed as 'good works'. Whether it is giving, volunteering, working below your income capacity or choosing a lifestyle below what you could afford so that you can help others, etc., it is all 'good works'.
A Christian who does good works (hopefully) does them out of a sense of thankfulness to God, not to gain His favour. According to James 2, if one claims salvation by faith, but does nothing to demonstrate that faith, that person's faith is incomplete. Likewise, James 1 states that pure and faultless religion includes looking after widows and orphans in their distress.
Some people wrongly think that by doing good works, they can make themselves acceptable to God. Or, in a similar manner, they do good works to balance out their bad deeds, and hopefully come out 'ahead'. That is works-salvation, which is not consistent with Christianity. People who try to earn their salvation are actually offensive to God, because they are rejecting the blood of Christ as an acceptable sacrifice.
I don't think we do good works in order to "please God"... I think we do good works as a natural result of our trying to become more Christ-like. It's not something we have to think about, or quantify. If we are living our lives striving to become more like Jesus, good works are the normal, day to day things that happen. There is no score-keeping involved... it's living the life.
S
The issue is that many who claim works are a requirement for salvation place the works before salvation.
An unconverted person has a corrupt nature that cannot please God, so this is why salvation is by faith alone..that, and the fact that it gives the saved person a reason to "boast" about their salvation.
Good works are a fruit of salvation, not a cause of it. The salvation has already occurred. The person has a new nature that wants to obey and please God, and that is why good works are produced. The "bad tree" becomes a "good tree" due to the heart transplant that God performs, and that is why the saved person produces good fruit.
Works oriented people try to tape fruit to their trees, or demand that others do. They are expert fruit examiners, especially of the fruits of others. They need to submit to the heart transplant that God performs, so that they can produce good fruit naturally due to the changed nature, and quit bragging about their duct tape fruit
Time for the Major..compliments of FreeNChrist...
You may have harnessed the energy of the flesh in an otherwise quite genuine desire to honor the Lord Jesus in your life. The flesh, which has its origin in Satan, will go along with you; to survive, it is quite prepared to engage in every form of Christian activity, even though this may seem to honor Christ.
The flesh will sing in the choir, teach Sunday school, preside at a deacons’ meeting, preach from the pulpit, organize an evangelistic crusade, go to Bible college, volunteer for the mission field, and a thousand other things, all of which may in themselves be otherwise legitimate, if only it can keep its neck out of the noose. The flesh will threaten, shout, strut, domineer, sulk, plot, creep, beg, plead, or sob, whatever the situation may demand in the interests of its own survival. By any and all means it will seek to cause every Christian to live by his own strength instead of by the power and grace of the Lord Jesus, and to conclude that doing so is actually a good thing!
The characteristic of the spiritually immature is that they are unable to discern between good and evil (Hebrews 5:13-14), and the baby Christian, like the foolish Galatians, “having begun in the Spirit” still tries to be “made perfect by the flesh” (Galatians 3:3).
We must be particularly patient with those whose lack of understanding allows a genuine love for the Lord Jesus to be satisfied with, and sometimes to be quite enthusiastic about, Christian activities involving means and methods which are heavily contaminated by the flesh. These are more deserving of instruction than rebuke, for they are still in their spiritual babyhood.
.....The flesh will seek to produce the most plausible arguments in justification of its own illegitimate activities, even though these activities are only what the Bible calls “dead works” (Hebrews 6:1; 9:14) and not the “good works” which are truly the work of God. “Good works” are those that have their origin in Jesus Christ, as Christ’s activity is released through your body because you present it to Him as a living sacrifice. You do this only by faith that expresses total dependence, as opposed to Adamic independence."
Major Ian Thomas: The Way Of The Flesh; from The Indwelling Life of Christ
You may have harnessed the energy of the flesh in an otherwise quite genuine desire to honor the Lord Jesus in your life. The flesh, which has its origin in Satan, will go along with you; to survive, it is quite prepared to engage in every form of Christian activity, even though this may seem to honor Christ.
The flesh will sing in the choir, teach Sunday school, preside at a deacons’ meeting, preach from the pulpit, organize an evangelistic crusade, go to Bible college, volunteer for the mission field, and a thousand other things, all of which may in themselves be otherwise legitimate, if only it can keep its neck out of the noose. The flesh will threaten, shout, strut, domineer, sulk, plot, creep, beg, plead, or sob, whatever the situation may demand in the interests of its own survival. By any and all means it will seek to cause every Christian to live by his own strength instead of by the power and grace of the Lord Jesus, and to conclude that doing so is actually a good thing!
The characteristic of the spiritually immature is that they are unable to discern between good and evil (Hebrews 5:13-14), and the baby Christian, like the foolish Galatians, “having begun in the Spirit” still tries to be “made perfect by the flesh” (Galatians 3:3).
We must be particularly patient with those whose lack of understanding allows a genuine love for the Lord Jesus to be satisfied with, and sometimes to be quite enthusiastic about, Christian activities involving means and methods which are heavily contaminated by the flesh. These are more deserving of instruction than rebuke, for they are still in their spiritual babyhood.
.....The flesh will seek to produce the most plausible arguments in justification of its own illegitimate activities, even though these activities are only what the Bible calls “dead works” (Hebrews 6:1; 9:14) and not the “good works” which are truly the work of God. “Good works” are those that have their origin in Jesus Christ, as Christ’s activity is released through your body because you present it to Him as a living sacrifice. You do this only by faith that expresses total dependence, as opposed to Adamic independence."
Major Ian Thomas: The Way Of The Flesh; from The Indwelling Life of Christ
G
The submit is key.Paul commands us to be filled with the Spirit, He never commands us to be indwelt with the Spirit.
The believer is always indwelt, baptism of the Spirit at salvation. But we can lose the filling, hence the command to be filled with the Spirit.
Thats what kinda scares me as of late. because naming and siting our sin and human good to God is what regains the filling of the Spirit if we grieve or quench the Spirit. 1 John 1:9.
If we don't rebound(1 John1:9) after we grieve or quench the Spirit, we aren't filled with the Spirit and doing DIVINE good works.
The believer is always indwelt, baptism of the Spirit at salvation. But we can lose the filling, hence the command to be filled with the Spirit.
Thats what kinda scares me as of late. because naming and siting our sin and human good to God is what regains the filling of the Spirit if we grieve or quench the Spirit. 1 John 1:9.
If we don't rebound(1 John1:9) after we grieve or quench the Spirit, we aren't filled with the Spirit and doing DIVINE good works.
2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Galatians 3
so repeating, the logos word, so others, can receive the holy spirit, is defined, as work by some.
asking jesus to heal, save, or help or feed etc is defined as work, (the good samaratian , never had the spirit , at this point,in history, did he ask if it was a classed, as a work, or his kindness.to help an other person.) yet we know the jewish priest could not stop because of the law)28 And he said to them, "You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation etc Acts 10
yet simply speaking it god that gives the holy spirit and the power to heal in his name (jesus)etc
so repeating, the logos word, so others, can receive the holy spirit, is defined, as work by some.
asking jesus to heal, save, or help or feed etc is defined as work, (the good samaratian , never had the spirit , at this point,in history, did he ask if it was a classed, as a work, or his kindness.to help an other person.) yet we know the jewish priest could not stop because of the law)28 And he said to them, "You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation etc Acts 10
yet simply speaking it god that gives the holy spirit and the power to heal in his name (jesus)etc