As Christians, we believe in grace. I would define grace simply as this: God initiating everything in our lives. In other words, it is grace that you even have the ability to believe in God. It is by grace you have been saved through your faith (Eph 2:8-10).
If we believe in grace, then we don't believe that our works can save us. There is nothing we can do to earn God's favor.
Here is the scrap for today:
-Is there a time/situation when hard work is simply the right answer? I'm not saying we take the credit or that we believe God saves us through our works, but we're definitely called to work in the kingdom, right?
-I ask because my sermon prep is kicking my butt. I'm stuck on a difficult passage and can't decide which direction to go. But I'm wondering if the answer is to just "stick it out" and "work through it".
Thoughts? Go.
Yes, it is by grace we are saved but because we are saved by His grace, we are expected to bear fruit. That is often hard work because He may be leading us in directions we don't want to go.
ReplyDeleteNanny! Yes. How did you comment on here? Everyone is having lots of trouble.
ReplyDeleteWisdom comes with age. I'm a senior qeek! I just followed the instructions. I had to sign up for a google account after clicking on comment. Reading those letters to prevent robos is the hardest.
ReplyDeleteWe actually talked about this in church last Sunday in Sunday School. We are saved my God's grace. The love and goal of being Christ Like will lead to the good deals. You can not get to Heaven by deeds. But the love of God makes those deeds normal. I will give you this example.
ReplyDeleteA good friend of Tom's Mom was in the hospital. The told them he was not gonna make it. She called us and the one thing we knew to do was pray. I messaged Bro. Wallace and Bro. Andrew about him. Three or four days later he came home. When we show him and his wife they both thanked us. We told them we did not do anything. They said you prayed. Tom told them that is what we do. The grace of God saved him, the love that we hold for God and our brothers and sisters is the reason we prayed for him.
I like that illustration Keshia. It's as if good deeds should naturally flow from us. For instance, whatever we "are", we will bear. If you were to pick up an apple at a store, you would never assume it came from a orange tree. Why not? Because orange trees give oranges and apple trees give apples. Likewise, we should be known by our fruit. It should not be hard for us to pray for others, feed the hungry, etc. It should flow naturally from us.
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