Answer to a question posed by a reader in, “the lie of once saved, always saved” (2)

PART 2

One thing that always bothers me as a believer, is the fact that many people overemphasise one thing over the other. Either the spiritual aspect or the physical aspect.

Everybody wants to read, “you are justified by faith”, without reading that “by works, a man is justified, and not by faith only”.

It bothers me because this is the sacredness of this belief system being put in question.

It was my understanding that God hates wickedness, lying, stealing, rape, murder, assault, racketeering, covetousness, deception, and all these things.

So, how then can this same God now say that what we do is not as important as what we say we believe? The number one reason I wanted to be a believer was to be righteous. I couldn’t care less about living forever. I wanted to be good. I was not afraid of a thousand devils in a thousand hells. I wanted to not become the things I hate about the world. I was tired of being inconsistent. I was tired of the fickleness of the mind, the wavering nature of my goodness, the primality of my desires and wants.

You look around you and see a sea of sin. People who kill, steal, deceive, plunder, lie, assault, harass. People who can’t do any better because, for some reason, they just can’t help themselves.

“So, how can you still be a practitioner of all these things, and say that you are good? How can you do what they do, and say that you are different?”

Those were the questions I asked myself. If I genuinely believed that we could be doing those things and be called righteous, I wouldn’t be a Christian today. I would simply have changed my name to “righteous” and continued with my life!

How can you continue sowing unto the flesh, and yet reap eternal life? Because he that soweth to the flesh reaps corruption. How can you be corrupt, and still be called good?

Because, how can you be the light of the world, if you are a worker of darkness? How can you be a child of light, and be in the dominion of the damned?

It was all a travesty to me.

“So what is faith? Why should it even matter? It makes no sense!”

And you see, the thing is: people talk this way a lot. They emphasize grace more than, “he that doth righteousness is righteous.” And I would have agreed with them. Unfortunately, I had 2 problems.

1. Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, was said to be perfect. If he was a thief, a liar, and a cheat, but also the son of God, the way, the truth, and the life, and the righteousness of God then I would have agreed that our actions don’t matter in salvation. The problem is, the guy was flawless! They said he was flawless. God said he was flawless. And he told us to be perfect like our Heavenly Father is perfect. If God was also a liar and a thief and a cheat, then I would agree as well that I can be a liar, a thief and a cheat and still call myself perfect. Unfortunately (and fortunately!), that is not the case.
2. Unfortunately for such peddlers, I found James chapter 2! I can’t type the whole thing here, but I genuinely call on everyone that reads this blog to stop reading it now and go and read that chapter. The link is here. Seriously. Stop and go and read it. Now.

So here I am, with contradicting Scriptures. On one hand, I have scriptures that tell me that I have justified by my faith, and “Abraham believed in God and it was counted unto him as righteousness”. And on the other hand, I have scriptures that tell me that Rahab and Abraham were justified by their works!

But, James tied it in perfectly for me.

James 2:26
For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

So, your faith is not just your belief! Your faith is your action as well.

You cannot preach charity, and giving, and have money in the bank that you refuse to give because of greed, and then come back again preaching charity and giving. It means you don’t believe in giving!

Because your faith is shown in your works! If I start this rant here again now, what will happen is that I will just basically be rewriting the whole DOOF library to you guys again, because that is what I have been saying since the very beginning!

So, what James explains to us here is that, yes, Abraham believed in God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. But, what qualified him as a believer? The things he did. God waited for Abraham to put that boy on an altar, and raise his knife to stab him dead, before he stopped him and said, “Alright, now you and I know that you have faith.” This was the proof of his faith! And it was an action, not a thought or a feeling.

God watched Abraham circumcise himself in old age and all his household! God watched Abraham leave his father’s house on a journey that he had not been told where his destination would be. God called him righteous because Abraham obeyed his commandments. And we all know that this is what qualifies us to be children of God. Not just what we say, or what we hear, but what we do.

“Why call me Lord, when you do not the things which I say?”