No living faith without works

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Standard said:
No need for that attitude; we're all having a conversation about God and what He's asked of us. I'd like to think praying for someone would come before insults and demeaning them.

We are saved by Jesus and our faith in Him, and are saved for good works, not by them. I've also posted on how God wants us to do good and always will. We're just not saved by it as we weren't able to do so. That doesn't mean we don't try to be godly, we just have His Grace for where we fail....
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Could you post the insults to @Just_A__Follower ?
I've been posting to him a long time and I don't think I ever insulted him.
 
biblestudent78 said:
Standard
An extension of your premise is warranted. The least recognized concept of salvation is that we are saved body, soul and spirit. Our resurrection will not be just the part of our grey matter that "contains" what we call faith. We are a soul that has a body, they are indivisible, thus we are indivisible. We can not "get our souls saved" without being fully bodily saved. We can not just claim to love God in our minds without loving God with our entire being, body and soul.

In the same way faith and works are inseparable but there is actually a bigger and more unifying framework that is left out our "Salvation by".....dogmas. Jesus and Paul make it clear, that the reborn person, the converted person will come to understand that salvation at its core is only about one thing...Love.

We are to love like Jesus loved, who he loved, how deeply he loved, how sacrificially His love is. It is easy to dismiss the Hebrew Bible model of sacrifice because we restrict it to some kind of animal thing. It was a long learning curve to teach humans that any right relationship with God is based on our sacrifice, often many kinds of sacrifice and always sacrifice for the right reasons. Many sacrificed their 1st born sons via pledging them to God for life. All who sacrificed weekly cost them time, money and even food off their table. At the end of that age, God showed us what the ultimate sacrifice was in Jesus the Christ. If the cross of Jesus does not teach us that love requires loving sacrifice then we have no hope. If it does not teach us that we too are called to take up our cross daily and deliver sacrificial love then we have purposefully reject the heart of the Gospel of Christ.

We have replaced all concept of our sacrifice. We reject all important forms of sacrifice. We "are guaranteed" a free ticket to heaven by nodding to a 60 pulpit prayer. Thus our "sacrifice" is that we "make room for Jesus in our heart."

Paul made it clear, if your horizontal and vertical relationships in life are not driven by love then it is just "noise." Jesus was crystal clear, if you love God you must obey God and submit to His transformation of your life. If you love God you must love your neighbor. Jesus story of the "Good Samaritan" is a story we love to tell but it is usually taught as a story showing the hypocrisy of the Jewish clergy. Is not. It is a clear statement that loving your neighbor requires personal involvement, personal care and an uncapped expenditure of money to bring God's love to those most in need. In 21st Century Protestant and Non- Denominational Christianity we assume these people are the responsibility. This is based on the delusional belief that we are in the "saving souls" business.

And here we sit trying to split hairs with 45,000 competing Christian dogmas trying to find comfort, self-interest, self-righteousness, convenience and personal freedom of choice in all matters. Way more that half of those attending Christian service don't even give money yet we disparage those O.T. Jews who paid 10% of all they owned to support God's work and added a weekly sacrifice out of their flocks, cattle, crops showing weekly they were willing to take food off their table weekly to obey God.

The New Testament is clear. There is no division between our souls and the rest of our body. We are souls. You can attempt dissect humans into physical, mental and spiritual components for purposes of making your dogmas work. That is why there 45,000 competing Christian dogmas. We are trying to recruit people of the same race, same income level, same politics, same education level, same knowledge worker and same culture. That is why our Protestant and non-denominal churches look the way they do. There is zero correlation between super comfortable dogma based recruiting and sacrificial and loving embracing of all who seek God.

If you think what you define as faith alone will save you, read 1st Corinthians 13 and Matthew 25.

Paul never says "works of any kind". He is helping Jews understand that "works of the law" and works oriented thinking will not save. If Christianity was against "works based religion" then Christ did not have to die on the Cross....the ultimate work of love. He just need to tell people to accept him in their heart...
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Yes, God wants us to love as He does and sacrifice many things that our old nature longs and lusts for. Also giving the first fruits to God, as you allude to. God loves this and demands it from us. This love will be seen beaming from us if we have faith in Him, a real, deep faith in who He is.
 
Standard said:
Post #256

Let's edify each other instead
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You think my post no. 256 is insulting!

You haven't been here long enough.
Check out posts to ME !

I do not insult persons..
I've had plenty of opportunity to.

Happy posting!
 
Just_A__Follower said:
I’ve spent most of my life in hell. An online comment won’t phase me. If anyone has to be insulted, I’d rather it be me than someone else.
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Just,,, I don't think I've ever insulted you.
Ad hominums are just not my style.
I hope you agree.
 
Cameron143 said:
But you do see how gaining an additional nature would expand choice and not limit it?
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I understand what your saying but people who don't have faith can do good works. Good works aren't a "product" of faith if they were then only those with faith could do good works. A tomato can only be gotten from a tomato plant and only tomato plants can produce tomatoes. Works are a choice with faith or without faith so works can't be a product of result of faith. You might be able to.suggest that people if faith are more inclined to do good works by they don't just come from faith.
 
Just_A__Follower said:
If faith must be completed by works in order to be complete, when exactly does a person become saved, before that completion or only after it?
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There's your problem, you think of being saved as an event. Btw I don't know if faith MUST be completed by works but Scripture says it is completed by works. James 2:22 "Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered his son Isaac in the altar?" If faith alone was sufficient, wouldn't it have made more sense for James to write:

"Was not Abraham our father justified by faith when he offered his son Isaiah at the altar?"
 
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ATG said:
1Jo 2:1
My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

Rom 7:24,
O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Our own faith alone, will always fail. If we can ask for Jesus' faith, then we will walk as Jesus. Jesus' faith never fails.
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thank you for this ATG, edifying in trust to Father and Son as Won for us. Ask, receive and see new
 
ATG said:
1Jo 2:1
My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

Rom 7:24,
O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Our own faith alone, will always fail. If we can ask for Jesus' faith, then we will walk as Jesus. Jesus' faith never fails.


This is Jesus' faith. Trusting in Jesus not to sin, but to do good.

When we trust in Jesus' faith to walk as He walked, then we have no thought nor care for sinning against Him. It become easy to walk with Jesus by His faith, and not our own alone:

Mat 11:28
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Mat 6:34
Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

1Pe 5:6
Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.
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Amen a millin million times over and over and over again, Woe is me Isaiah 6:1-7
 
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Cameron143 said:
None of this negates what I wrote. One would expect a faith that is void of works is dead because we were created in Christ Jesus unto good works. Works are a product of being in Christ. That is, the condition of being in Christ and the consequent work of Christ in the individual always results in works. Works are part and parcel of what it is to be in Christ.
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Adam and Eve were in God. No one was closer to God than either of them. Are you suggesting they werent in God? They sinned not because they weren't in God but they were human. No one had it more perfectly than them and they fell. Works hard a
choice of faith not a product of faith.
 
Toknow said:
You have a really creepy idea of what works is.

I wonder if this is blaspheming the Holy Spirit since you do seem to be making fun of the good works that Jesus said we must do or be removed from the vine.

John 15:2
2“Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He [God] takes away;
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It's not creepy it's ignorant. That poster is mocking what he believes are catholic "works" because people who believe like that poster think anyone who discusses the necessity of works MUST be Catholic. That poster abandoned the discussion and was solely intending to denigrate Catholicism.
 
Nedsk said:
I understand what your saying but people who don't have faith can do good works. Good works aren't a "product" of faith if they were then only those with faith could do good works. A tomato can only be gotten from a tomato plant and only tomato plants can produce tomatoes. Works are a choice with faith or without faith so works can't be a product of result of faith. You might be able to.suggest that people if faith are more inclined to do good works by they don't just come from faith.
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While a “work” may be objectively “good”, the concept of “good works” in Scripture is those that are acceptable to God, and faith in Him is what makes works acceptable.

Works done from a desire to earn God’s acceptance, approval, or grace are not acceptable.
 
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Dino246 said:
While a “work” may be objectively “good”, the concept of “good works” in Scripture is those that are acceptable to God, and faith in Him is what makes works acceptable.

Works done from a desire to earn God’s acceptance, approval, or grace are not acceptable.
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So you're saying if an atheist saved someones life, that would be an "objective" good but it wouldn't be "acceptable" to God? So given the history of Jews and Samaritans why would Jesus select the behavior of a Samaritan as an example of mercy over a priest or a Levite?
 
Nedsk said:
I understand what your saying but people who don't have faith can do good works. Good works aren't a "product" of faith if they were then only those with faith could do good works. A tomato can only be gotten from a tomato plant and only tomato plants can produce tomatoes. Works are a choice with faith or without faith so works can't be a product of result of faith. You might be able to.suggest that people if faith are more inclined to do good works by they don't just come from faith.
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People without faith can appear to have good works, but they don't really. A lady can give a mite and have done a good work while others can give abundantly and it is not a good work. The motivation behind the action is important. Since it is impossible to please God apart from faith, your statement is false.
 
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Nedsk said:
Adam and Eve were in God. No one was closer to God than either of them. Are you suggesting they werent in God? They sinned not because they weren't in God but they were human. No one had it more perfectly than them and they fell. Works hard a
choice of faith not a product of faith.
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Adam and Eve were not in Christ before the fall. It wasn't until God shed blood and clothed them that they were in Christ.
 
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