Not By Works

[eternally-gratefull]

Mr. Bob

If faith is a work then we have earned our salvation, that is a problem.

Faith is not an act of our will either, because we often believe things against our will

Faith is passive, it is the act of being persuaded.

Second while we do strive to enter the gate, meaning like a natural birth there is a conviction that takes place, that does not mean that to enter the gate is a work, we enter when we have been persuaded, faith is the passive result of this conviction based on the evidence and the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

Therefore faith is not a work, it is the instrument by which we are saved...we are saved by grace through faith

Jesus answered the question.

It is the “Work of God we believe” (Have faith)

 

[justpassinthrough]

Hmmmm...... I don’t think there is anything “human” in regards to the “spirit. The human part is the flesh and earthen clay.

Yes ma’am.

We are spirit beings, with a soul and body.


Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Thessalonians 5:23




JPT

 

[dcontroversal]

So how much love does one have to see?

Mr. @VCO think on this.... as someone once told me

A command that everyone keeps is superfluous, and a reward that everyone receives for a virtue that everyone has is nonsense.

Most of the new testament letters are filled with exhortations.

"For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." (Eph 2:10)

One point is clear here. Good works are not seen as the EVIDENCE that we are God's workmanship, but rather as the expected result of that workmanship. Whether this result will be achieved is not stated!!!!

Notice: "should walk". This verb is "peripatesomen": 1 person plural aorist active SUBJUNCTIVE, the mood of potential, not reality.

God does not drag anyone down the path of obedience.

I will not quarrel that where there is justifying faith, that naturally, signs of regenerate life should exist too. This is a reasonable assumption for any Christian unless he has been converted on his death bed!

However, it is quite wrong, and another thing altogether, to claim that a life of dedicated obedience and the consistent display of the love of God is guaranteed by regeneration, or even that such works as they are must be visible to a human observer.

God alone may be able to detect the signs of life from regeneration in some of His children.

God does not look for works...he looks on the throughts and intents of the heart...he looks for FAITH.....shall the Son of Man find FAITH when he returns...he does not say works!

WE MUST BELIEVE THAT HE IS AND A REWARDER OF THOSE THAT DILLIGENTLY SEEK HIM......both are directed at FAITH

 

[eternally-gratefull]

I'm saying the work was complete when we received for some it may have came easy but I used think most religion was bunk and preachers were liars.

I met some Christians that studied the Bible and sang under a tree in a park most every evening. I hadn't been to a church in 9 years except for weddings funeral and family obligations. I thought the Christians I met there were cool and the Bible was interesting. Reading was always a chore but I did it just to fit in. Little did I realize it would change my life.

Give God the credit. It was not your work of faith which saved you, It was Gods work in which you eventually started to realise was trustworthy, and decided to take that step and trust him.

 

[UnderGrace]

Jesus answered the question.

It is the “Work of God we believe” (Have faith)

Where does Jesus state this?

 

[eternally-gratefull]

Where does Jesus state this?

John 6:
28 Then they said to Him, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” 29 Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.”

 

[justpassinthrough]

God does not look for works...he looks on the throughts and intents of the heart...he looks for FAITH.....shall the Son of Man find FAITH when he returns...he does not say works!

WE MUST BELIEVE THAT HE IS AND A REWARDER OF THOSE THAT DILLIGENTLY SEEK HIM......both are directed at FAITH

Faith works or expresses itself through acts of love.


For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
Galatians 6:5


If there is faith, then there is the action of obedience.


Faith without obedience is dead.



God does not approve of dead faith.



What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
James 2:14-17




JPT

 

[FollowHisSteps]

Jesus answered the question.

It is the “Work of God we believe” (Have faith)

Amen. But believe what? The good news that sinners enter heaven or that God can make sinners
into saints through the cross and the Holy Spirit?

 

[UnderGrace]

John 6:
28 Then they said to Him, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” 29 Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.”

I do not see where this shows God gives them the faith?

 

[eternally-gratefull]

I do not see where this shows God gives them the faith?

I did not say God gave them faith, I said it was his work.

You can not and will not come to faith in the mystery of God. The things of God are foolishness to yoru nature. God must do the work of giving you the tools so that you can make that decision.

Thats is why it is his work, not yours.

 

[eternally-gratefull]

People love to use Pauls words, Or even John 3: 16, But after deep study of John 6. We have in Jesus own words the total destruction of religion and the means that mankind can work to earn salvation. Or that mankind can even work to maintain salvation. The food which endures forever. Total destruction of any belief that salvation can be lost.

Sadly, Because of the language Jesus uses, I think satan turns people away from this passage (eat my flesh etc) and he even convinced one church to turn it into some religious sacrament (the eucharist) in order to keep people from understand the basic truths jesus intended to portray.

Sadly again, As many disiples did not understand and walked away, Few people understand as peter did. YOU HAVE THE WORDS OF ETERNAL LIFE. Where are we going to go?

 

[FollowHisSteps]

Knowing the truth is all about judgement.

For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?
How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?
You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
Matt 7:2-5

Jesus is saying simply everything we see, know and feel comes through our perception.
If our perception is biased, we see the wrong things as problems in the wrong way.

What is the plank? Sin, guilt, unresolved conflist, bitterness, unforgiveness, hatred, hurt, defence.
Until we are cleansed we cannot see the truth in others or even in ourselves.

Because we see with our hearts, nothing we see is objective but always distorted by who we are.
Unless we let the cross cleanse us, that we let love rule and become King, we do not know how to
proceed.

Put simply if you do not resolve the heart through repentance everything else will go wrong.
So sinners who stay sinners will never know Jesus or the way, or be able to walk it.

The heart will always self justify and make sin appear that it is ok. So any theology that compromises
our life history, compromises us, and denies Christ. But only those who have come out the other side
and know this reality, will ever argue this point. It is a self fulfilling prophecy, where those who fail will
always predict this is Gods way, and will never know any different, because until you walk in righteousness
and forgiveness you cannot see. Jesus is this clear and this simple.

 

[calibob]

Mr. Bob

If faith is a work then we have earned our salvation, that is a problem.

Faith is not an act of our will either, because we often believe things against our will

Faith is passive, it is the act of being persuaded.

Second while we do strive to enter the gate, meaning like a natural birth there is a conviction that takes place, that does not mean that to enter the gate is a work, we enter when we have been persuaded, faith is the passive result of this conviction based on the evidence and the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

Therefore faith is not a work, it is the instrument by which we are saved...we are saved by grace through faith

Salvation cannot be earned because we all deserved to go to hell according to the law. We do cannot buy our way out! It took work to believe for me.

After what to me then was a lifetime of being lied to; The people who I called Mom and Dad had nothing to do with my birth. The Pope didn't speak for God. The Catholic president could be killed. The war in Viet Nam wasn't to stop the world spread of Communism. The President was a crook. Marijuana didn't cause Heroin addiction... Lies, lies mostly lies. It was hard to believe in a God I was never told the truth about. The Idea of saved by Grace by the same loving God that created hell?

Jesus came to by studying and paying attention and that went against my sinful lazy nature!

 

[FollowHisSteps]

Is God a tautology?

Following God shows you why you must follow God.
Being cleansed shows you why you must be cleansed.
Seeing the truth because your heart is clean, shows you the truth that your heart needs to be clean.

One can have the best ideas in the world and assent to them, unless ones heart is cleansed death
is still King.

 

[UnderGrace]

I do not see where this shows God gives them the faith?

Salvation cannot be earned because we all deserved to go to hell according to the law. We do cannot buy our way out! It took work to believe for me.

After what to me then was a lifetime of being lied to; The people who I called Mom and Dad had nothing to do with my birth. The Pope didn't speak for God. The Catholic president could be killed. The war in Viet Nam wasn't to stop the world spread of Communism. The President was a crook. Marijuana didn't cause Heroin addiction... Lies, lies mostly lies. It was hard to believe in a God I was never told the truth about. The Idea of saved by Grace by the same loving God that created hell?

Jesus came to by studying and paying attention and that went against my sinful lazy nature!

I think you missed what I wrote.

 

[calibob]

Give God the credit. It was not your work of faith which saved you, It was Gods work in which you eventually started to realise was trustworthy, and decided to take that step and trust him.

I'm not taking the credit for Grace. I acknowledging that I had to cooperate and it was difficult to choose to follow Gods will over my own destructive will and it takes a lot of practice... He's not done with me yet.

 

[eternally-gratefull]

I'm not taking the credit for Grace. I acknowledging that I had to cooperate and it was difficult to choose to follow Gods will over my own destructive will and it takes a lot of practice... He's not done with me yet.

Well that is sanctification.

I am talking about your original faith, Which saved you..(if your saved)

 

[calibob]

John 6:
28 Then they said to Him, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” 29 Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.”

Amen! We have to cooperate.

I think you missed what I wrote.

Over the past few days the computer has been malfunctioning especially the replies have been out of the order I have selected occasionally.

 

[Endoscopy]

@VCO Endoscopy plainly states no works no faith


Since you are in agreement with him, how many works to prove our faith?

Do we look to our works for evidence of our salvation?

Is this what you do, this is a very precarious place to put one's trust, the evidence one's works?

Can we separate out what God commands for salvation and what He commands for a worthy walk?

I propose that if we read John 15 about "abiding" they are separate.

Now people with traditional view will not separate salvation from fellowship....now I am truly curious VCO where you are on this?

You seem to be deliberately misconstruing the relation of faith and works. There are good and bad works. Faith generates good works. Non Christians can generate bad works. Like Jesus said by their fruits (works) you shall know them. Their works define what they are.

 

[eternally-gratefull]

Amen! We have to cooperate.

Co-operate?

Jesus called it being bancrupt

The tax collector Got on his knees unable even to look up to heaven,

Thats not cooperation. That is a desperate plea of brokenness calling out for mercy, because they are dead and they know it..