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Romans 10:9

“that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved”

James puts the point to the purpose and source of works - it is a demonstration OF our faith. His statement that “works without faith is dead” clearly means just that - it is of no use. This clearly ties directly back to Jesus’ own words regarding Him being the vinedresser - and the unproductive vines being cut off. If you have true faith, but are unproductive/unfruitful (as in-no works), then you are at a very real risk of being cut off . But as Christ Himself said none can pluck His from His hand, that doesn’t mean undoing or losing salvation - it means we may very well be cut off from this life.

[[“works without faith is dead]]

A lot of people get confused with this verse, thinking that if they aren’t producing great works, their faith must be dead, or never existed i nthe first place- and therefore they begin to doubt their salvation.

God gave His commandments not so that we can ‘acheive holiness’ by ‘our efforts’ and therefore become ‘more favourable’ in the eyes of God, but rather, so that we can ENJOY a life of holiness with God as He itnended- many many of us will never reach those levels of fellowship wigth God, for there are many commands, many God given suggestions, that we simpl,y don’t care to follow if we’re really honest with ourselves-

Does that make God love those of us who are saved any less? NOPE!

It’s unfortunate, but there seems to be a ‘values system’ sort of hting that goes on behind the scenes in Christians lives- we tend to always comapre ourselves with super saints, and I guess can get prettyy depressed because we don’t measure up- thinking perhaps that there’s somethign wrong with us-

In life, picture a typical family- father, mother, sons and daughters- some sons are closer to their father, some, not as close, some daughters close, some not so close- BUT, the father and mother don’t love ANY of their children any less regardless of how close they may be (or at least they shlouldn’t love any less ideally)

Thoswe children who are closer to their parents of course enjoy beign with their parents more, enjoy family time with htem, enjoy benifits that those who aren’;t as close dont’; get to enjoy on a daily bassis, but whe the oens who aren’t close come to be with hte family, everyone is joyous and enjoy there time together

I guess what I’m satying is that there are soem called to be the spiritual giants who minister to the rest of us who will never be the s[piritual giants we guilt ourselves into thinking we must be because we tend to compare ourselves to those spiritual giants who minister to us.

Think also of the fact that there are rich Christians, and there are poor ones- I mean, dirt poor- I just think there are people ‘called’ to be certain class of Christians- and I think we must fully accept whatever class we have been handed by God- and perhaps even learn to accept it happily at some point in time, and to stop trying to guilt oursdelves into being somethign we were never meant to be just because we see other classes of Christians who ‘seem’ to have it better (whether financially, or spiritually) than we do

I kinda went off topic- but wanted to point out that hte verse I quoted I think really throws people for a loop- and they get this guilt complex because they aren’t the sjuper Christians like Paul, Peter, Matthew, Mark etc were- and I get pretty upset when I see televangelists tickling hte ears of their flocks and telling them that they ‘just don’t have great wealth and health, and spirituality’ because ‘they just don’t have enough faith’. Their ‘pray it and claim it’ sermons have really given Christianity a bad name, and caused many a good folks to come to doubt their salvation, causing unneeded frustration and even depression.