Simply Believe

Before Jesus, sin was what separated us from God. It was a great divide between us and God. When Jesus died, he died for every single human being on earth. He took our sins upon himself. Everything bad that we will ever do was paid for on that cross. Jesus paid the price for all of our sin. So, sin is no longer the problem nor is it what separates us from God. He bridged that divide creating a way for us to get to the father. He tells us that if we simply believe in him that we will have eternal life with him. The word believe is the same Greek word for faith or trust, and it simply means to believe something to be true. We simply believe that He is who he said he was and that what he did accomplished what he said it accomplished. We take God at his word. No actions or changes of life that we do have anything to do with obtaining salvation. It is by God's GRACE alone that we are saved, through FAITH ALONE in Jesus Christ alone. This salvation comes from nothing else but faith. No good works. Scripture tells us that since we are saved by Grace, then we are not saved by works. And if we were saved by works, then it could not be by Grace. The word Grace means an undeserved gift, meaning nothing we do can obtain it. Works and Grace are complete opposites. If any type of works are tied into salvation, (good deeds, baptism, saying a prayer, confession, turning from sins, going to church, ect) then that is NOT the salvation that is offered in the Bible. That would be a salvation that depended on something we did. Works CANNOT be part of salvation. We are saved by Christ's FREE GIFT. We accept it by simply believing in Him. Once we put our faith in him, we can then start our journey in our Christian life. 

* Matthew 7:21-23, John 3:16, 6:29, 8:24, Acts 16:30-31, Romans 3:19-31, Galatians 2:16, 4:2-5, 11:6, Ephesians 2:8-9, Titus 3:4-7, 1 John 3:23, 

Faith Without Works Is Dead???

"Faith Without Works is Dead" is a verse that is thrown around by Reformed folks all the time. This is one of the most misunderstood verses in the bible. Many false Lordship teachers teach this as meaning "if you don't have visible good works, then you were never saved at all" this couldn't be farther than the truth. This verse & surrounding passages is talking to believers about their relation to non believers. The Lord's brother is saying that we should show our faith to others by doing good works. 

I'm a man who loves illustrations and analogies, so bear with me for a second. 

Now, faith is an internal thing, much like a thought is. You can't physically pull a thought out and show it to someone. You express a thought to others by speaking it or acting on it. That's how you show a thought. Just because you don't express a thought to others doesn't mean that you don't have that thought. Likewise, you show your faith to others by acting it out in good works for The Lord. But just because you don't do good works, doesn't mean you don't have faith, it just means that you aren't showing your faith to others. 

An analogy that I find most useful in explaining this verse actually came from someone I was trying to explain this verse to. I was explaining this passage to my dear friend Erin, and all of a sudden she said: " Ooh! It's like a doctor who doesn't help people! They have their medical degree and are a doctor, nothing can take that away from them, they will always be a doctor, but they don't practice medicine or help people. Sure they are a doctor, but what good are they to anyone else if they don't put that to use?"

Needless to say, I didn't have to say anything else! Ha! I ran this analogy by a family friend of ours who is a well-respected family doctor in town, an elder at my church, and my old Sunday school teacher, and he was amazed and said that was exactly right!

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying or advocating that we shouldn't do works. In Romans 6, the apostle Paul tells us, "shall we go on sinning so that grace may abound? BY NO MEANS!"

 I'm simply saying that works has nothing to do with salvation.  Ephesians 2:8-9 and John 3:16 clearly state that we are saved by God's grace through our faith alone in Christ alone, not by works. The moment we believe in Christ, we are saved. We are justified, or made righteous in God's eyes because of Christ. Romans 3:28 & Galatians 2:16 clearly say that we are justified by faith, apart from works. Romans 11:6 says "If it by grace, it is no longer of works, and if it is of works it is no longer of grace."

We SHOULD do good works to please The Lord and to show our faith so that we may share the gospel with unbelievers. But those works have nothing to do with whether we go to heaven or not, we go to heaven based on Our Faith alone in Christ alone by the Grace of God. 

Here is an excerpt from one of Dr Dave Anderson's books. It explains this passage in James 2 very well. I've met Dr Anderson on numerous occasions when he led men's retreats  for my church. 

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"Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead." (James 2:17).

"My faith, concludes James, without any works, is dead. This does not say my faith was never alive. It is dead. Paul talked about the root. James talks about the fruit. Paul looks at the tree and talks about the root where it began. James looks at the tree and talks about the fruit. He does not say it is a fake tree, but that the tree, which was once very much alive and productive, now has no fruit. It has lost its life. It needs rejuvenating, revitalizing"

"James says there is so much more to life than heaven and hell. To James, our life is like a house we are building. Capturing our Lord’s parable from the Sermon on the Mount, he says if we build on the firm foundation of hearing and doing, i.e. faith plus works, our house (meaning our life), will endure, and be preserved in the storm. It will be saved both literally and figuratively. The life lived in accordance with God’s Word will be a healthier and happier life on earth, and its value and worth will be saved and preserved for eternity at the JSC [Judgment Seat of Christ]. But the Christian who builds his life, his house, on just hearing God’s Word without aligning his life with it is a fool, says Christ. He builds his house on sand with no concrete. The first big storm will send it crumbling. He will be miserable in this life, and his life will have no profit to show at the JSC.

"That is why we stress God’s Word. According to James 1:21, it has the potential to save our lives, both on earth and in heaven. God’s Word touches every area of our lives. When we hear and do as it instructs, we are like wise men who build their lives on a solid foundation. We will find success min this life and significance in the next. Every area of our lives that we submit to the wisdom of His Word can have eternal value and worth— family, business, recreation, friendships, health, worship, parenting, you name it. God is interested in preserving far more than our spirits for eternity. Our spirits are preserved by faith alone. He also wants to preserve every area of our life on earth, so it can weather the storms and yield fruit for eternity. This requires more than faith. It requires hearing and doing. That dynamic combination of faith and works has the potential of giving us a healthy, happy life today, the value of which is being preserved in the world to come. With a life built on God’s Word, no storm can blow our house down."

*Anderson, David R. (2013-07-08). Triumph Through Trials: The Epistle of James 

The World's Greatest Lie: You get to Heaven by being Good

I want to address something that has on my mind lately regarding heaven. I have heard this subject called "The World's biggest lie" and even though it sounds over the top, it really is one of, if not the biggest lie ever invented. The sad part about the lie is 1. Most of the world has fallen for it, and 2. It is a matter of life or death.
You may be asking yourself, what is this big lie? Well, the lie exist in many different variations, but the most common two are that "You go to Heaven if you're good" and that "you get to heaven based on your good works". Sure, your grandparents and parents may have fed you that lie as a child, and almost every Hollywood film uses that lie to comfort people. But the fact of the matter is: Going to Heaven has absolutely nothing to do with how good or how bad you are! Sure, Heaven is associated with "good" and Hell with "bad", but truth be told, many "good" people will go to Hell, and many "bad" people will go to Heaven.
First off, nowhere in the Bible is it said that being good gets you to Heaven. What does God say is the requirement to enter into Heaven?
In Psalms 15 David asks God:
"Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill?"
And God answers:
"He whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from his heart and has no slander on his tongue, who does his neighbor no wrong and casts no slur on his fellowman, who despises a vile man but honors those who fear the Lord, who keeps his oath even when it hurts, who lends his money without usury and does not accept a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things will never be shaken."

Wow! So to get to heaven, I have to obey the Ten Commandments? I have to be perfect and sinless? I'm pretty sure that I've broken a lot of the commandments! I guess I'm going to spend an eternity in Hell.
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

It is said in Romans 3:23 that "ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God". That means that everyone has sinned, and thus do not meet God's requirement to enter into heaven. In Ecclesiastes 7:20 it says: "There is not one truly righteous person on the earth who continually does good and is sinless" So in reality, it is fair that we ALL deserve to go to Hell! But, because God is a merciful and loving god, he gave us a second chance. God sent his only son, Jesus Christ, to Earth to live a sinless life, to die for ALL sin, and to raised from the dead to further prove that He was God. Though he was fully human, Jesus was also fully God, God in the flesh, his miracles were done as a way of showing people who he really was.

*Side note: (He had a mass following of believers and because he claimed to be God, the Roman Empire was threatened by that. They wanted him dead, so they, along with the Pharisees and Sadducees (Jewish political & religious leaders) tried to find fault with him. They wanted to find something they could charge him with, so that they could arrest and kill him. But because he was God, thus making him sinless, they couldn't find anything to use against him. )*

In John 14, Jesus is meeting with his disciples about going to heaven to prepare a place for believers, when Thomas (often called doubting Thomas) asked Jesus: "How will we know the way [to heaven]?" Jesus answers: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. Nobody come to the father except through me!"
In John 3, Jesus tells Nicodemus, a Pharisee: "Good loved the world so much, that he gave his one and only Son, and that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."
When Jesus died on the cross, he shed his blood and died for ALL sin! He paid the price of death so that we could spend eternity with him in Heaven, if we believed in him! Before he died, hanging on the cross beside Jesus was a thief. The thief realized who Jesus was and admitted that he believed in him, Jesus pardoned him of his sins and assured him that he would be with him in Heaven that day (Luke 23:39-43). Now, this thief, who was clearly a criminal, did not have time to be baptized, do good works, or anything. He simply BELIEVED and put his faith in Christ, and he was admitted into heaven.

In Acts, Paul and Silas were imprisoned because of teaching the gospel. Their prison guard asked: "What must I do to be saved?" Paul and Silas answered: "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved"

In Ephesians, Paul writes to the Church in Ephesus: "For it is by God's grace that you have been saved through FAITH. It is not the result of your own efforts, but God's gift, so that no one can boast about it." So, in other words, because of God's grace (sending Christ to save us), we have been been made righteous (made right) in the sight of God. This has nothing to do with any work you have done, but is a gift of God, so we can't brag about doing anything to have earned it.

I urge you to read the book of Galatians, it is a letter Paul wrote to the Church in Galatia reprimanding them because they have fallen under the assumption that they must obey the law (do works) to earn their way into heaven. They were already saved, but had been deceived by false teachers into believing the "Great Lie". Paul sets them straight. At the end of chapter 2, Paul makes a very powerful statement: "If keeping the law (doing good works) could make us right with God, then Christ died in vain!" WOW! That's intense! It's true, if we could get to heaven based on doing good things, what was the point of Christ dying? There isn't! We can only get to heaven by believing in Jesus Christ.

One of the big passages that is used out of context to back up the "Great Lie" is in James 2. James is talking to a group of Believers about what they need to do after being saved. He tells them that they need to do good works to bring non-believers to Christ. He tells them that "Faith without Works is dead!" If read out of context, this looks as though James is saying that your faith is useless without doing works, but that is not at all what he is saying! Since he is talking to believers, and their salvation cannot be lost (John 10:28-30), he is telling them that in the eyes of man, their faith without works is useless, because they have not shown the attitudes of Christ and have not lead anyone to Christ. Thus meaning their faith is useless to others. It is very important that when reading the Bible, you read it in context and in its entirety

One illustration that I often use is that the world is a sinking ship. We are all on our way to death by drowning. God saw that nobody would survive, so he threw us a giant Lifeboat (Jesus) to save us. He proved that it is really a Lifeboat, and many people climbed aboard. But many people refused to believe it was a lifeboat, so they didn't grab on. God gives us free will, meaning we have the choice to choose him or not. But he only saves those who chose to believe the facts. The rest of the people who refused Christ will spend eternity in Hell. You can do all the good works you want, but as long as you dont have faith in Christ, you will surely burn for eternity. The wages of Sin is death, so this is completely fair.

We are supposed to do good works as a way of showing our love for God, not as a way of earning salvation. As you can see, "The World's Biggest Lie" has been around ever since Jesus was living. It is clear that you can only get to heaven by believing in Christ. The statements that "You go to Heaven if you're good" and that "you get to heaven based on your good works" are lies straight from the pit of Hell