Faith And Works
The Relationship between Faith and Works
It is a Christian belief that we are justified by faith. Justification means that God declares a sinner to be righteous. When the sinner puts his faith in the sacrifice of Jesus and trusts in him not in himself for righteousness, then God justifies him. But, if the Bible teaches that we are justified by faith, does it also teach we are justified by works as James seems to say? This paper will research the question; is faith enough?
This is a difficult and touchy subject to some. I choose to clarify this question because there seem to be two kinds of people in our church today; those who do without seeking self gain, and those who want someone to do for them. I see the same people always willing to volunteer when a need arises. I am involved with a program called Upward; teaching Christ through the opportunity to serve through sports (Upward, 2008). We should all be looking for opportunities to serve God. With Upward Soccer this year there will be a need for one hundred people to pray for one hundred days. There is opportunity for eighty people to give devotionals or testimonies. Our church has approximately four hundred people and we will be lucky to find forty volunteers. If everyone allowed God to work through them, we would have more volunteers than players. Why do so many people fail to realize the beauty of works through faith?
Many people insist that faith and works are separate objections. James and Paul seem to differ on the subject of faith and works. James places an emphasis on works while Paul seems to favor faith. In the book of Acts we can see that Paul and James may have been in agreement about how a person is saved. “The words of the prophets are in agreement with this as written: After this I will return and rebuild David’s fallen tent. Its ruins I will rebuild, and restore it, that the remnant of men may seek the Lord, and the gentiles who bear my name, says the Lord, who does...
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