Faith by Works

As I write to you today, my desire is to encourage us to strengthen our resolve to walk in God's word. As the church we've often regarded our role in God's Kingdom to simply keep a right heart with little regard to our actual fruit. The mantra of many of us in the church today is, 'we just need to have a right heart.' Although one of the reasons that Jesus came was to recapture the hearts of mankind, His imminent goal was to redeem us through our submission to His truth with a right heart, not one or the other. Although both of these are important in our lives, they should work in tandem and not with one above the other.

Whether you refer to having the right motives as purity of heart, having pure motives, good intentions or any other title of choice, to focus solely on having a right heart is to depart from obedience to God's word. This was of course what got us in this mess (the fall of man) to begin with; not obeying God's word. Now obviously I don't attempt to say that the condition of your heart is unimportant, but what I will say is that it is not the end. The coming of Christ to the Earth in order to redeem mankind was an ushering in of a renewed opportunity to commune with God by obeying his word through a heart that was turned to Him. To receive the lordship of Jesus Christ is to surrender to His authority. And who is Jesus? The word of God (John 1:14). By viewing our present situations in life through this lense opens up our responsibility in this wonderful process of the redemption of mankind. The truth (Jesus) came, and it was then/now that the ball was in the court of mankind to respond to that truth with worship/obedience (John 4:21-24). Our response to God's truth is what is paramount today. Your heart must be right in receiving that truth, but it's your response to it that will determine the results. It's the outworking of that heart that tell us whether we truly have faith in Him.

Imagine a man who spent his entire marriage refusing to disciple his wife and children in the word of God. Breaking promise after promise to his family. Living in such a way that he frivolously wasted any inheritance that could have been set aside for his family. And putting every other area of his life above his family. Now with all of that considered, imagine that he justified his life to his family, friends and God by saying: 'I wanted to do good' or 'I had good intentions' or 'Look at all of my other accomplishments.' Would we call this man faithful? Would this man have fulfilled his God-given responsibilities? Would we say he accomplished his God-given purpose? I don't even need to ask for your response because I can hear all of you yelling NO at your computer screens. The problem is, this is how we've often viewed our walk with Christ. We often fall short and do not fulfill what God has required of us as His children, and then our redeeming statement is that God knows our heart or that we had a heart to do right. I would say to this that I believe God is looking at us and saying: Yes I do know your heart which is why I sent the Way the Truth and the Life so you could walk in My heart for you. So you could not just have good intentions, but bear fruit worthy of repentance (John 14:6 & Matthew 3:1-12; Matthew 4:17 - NKJV).

As we have a fresh start on the calendar this year, let us choose each day to be diligent to show our faith by our works. A right heart is a start, but it is not what completes the race. Jesus declared to us that those who endure to the end would be saved, not those who have the purest of motives and intentions. He said to us that those who did the the will of His Father would enter the Kingdom of Heaven, not just those who had a desire and said: Lord, Lord, have we not done all of these things in your name? (Matthew 7:21-27) It's not just about a right heart or about good works, it's about the will of God. Let's take the challenge to be true to the word and the spirit and not ourselves (as the world would have us believe). Our allegiance is to the Father and His will and not the feelings that we have within our heart. Let's hear truth and respond to it and do whatver is necessary in order to apprehend and fulfill the plans of God for our lives. Let's begin with what He expects of all of us from His written word and then allow Him to paint the individual pictures for each of our lives in that context. Let your works speak of what is in your heart, confirming that you have responded appropriately to truth. The grace has been given to us by God to be saved, but then for us also to go forth and do good works. Ephesians 2:8-10 is a passage that highlights this beautifully:

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of

God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared

beforehand that we should walk in them.

We have been saved by grace through faith and not of ourselves, it is God's gift. Thank God for His mercy, but we then must go on to verse 10 in which Paul tells us that we are the Father's workmanship. In that, we are created in Christ Jesus for good works that God HIMSELF prepared for us to walk in. This is great news as well as a great responsibility. Thankfully, Father God has poured out an ample supply of grace for us to complete every task which He has prepared for us to do. He has given us great and precious promises as we're reminded of in 2 Peter 1:2-10. Everything that pertains to life and godliness is ours by His divine power. Therefore, I encourage you today not to stop at having a right heart, but to go on to respond to the Father's truth in such a way that we show our faith by our works.