{"id":6845,"date":"2019-12-23T20:00:16","date_gmt":"2019-12-24T03:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/?p=6845"},"modified":"2019-12-23T23:01:05","modified_gmt":"2019-12-24T06:01:05","slug":"james2_14-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/james2_14-26\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Having Faith in Jesus Enough to Save You?"},"content":{"rendered":"

James 2:14-26\u00a0\u00a0Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/p>\n

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Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is James 2:14-26.\u00a0\u00a0Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

On verses 14-26:\u00a0\u00a0What a powerful and hard-hitting passage.\u00a0\u00a0How do you reconcile this passage with other famous passages in the Bible like Ephesians 2:8 which clearly teach that \u201cit is by grace you have been saved, through faith\u2026not by works so that no one can boast\u201d?\u00a0\u00a0Is James saying here that you can earn your way to heaven by your own good works?\u00a0\u00a0No.\u00a0\u00a0Is he questioning whether faith in Jesus can really save you?\u00a0\u00a0No.\u00a0\u00a0Rather,\u00a0here James is defining what real saving faith in Christ looks like.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0If someone has real saving faith in Christ, that faith will express itself through action.\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0Anyone can say, \u201cJesus is my Saviour\u201d, but whether or not that person truly believes that Jesus is their Saviour will become evident in how that person lives.<\/p>\n

James is not saying that you need to live a perfect Christian life before it can be concluded that you have true saving faith. (As James will later write in chapter 3, “we all stumble in many ways” (James 3:2)).\u00a0\u00a0But if you have no deeds at all, if you refuse to do the basic things that Christ calls His followers to do, like get baptized, or repent of sin, or have compassion for the poor (v15-16), or serve your church, then your behaviour will start to call into question your belief, such that you may need to start questioning whether you truly believe Jesus is your Saviour at all.\u00a0\u00a0Jesus says something similar in Matthew\u00a07:20: \u201cyou will recognize them by their fruit\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0For a complete absence of deeds can call into question the real presence of saving faith.<\/p>\n

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Heavenly Father, thank You that You did not just say You love us.\u00a0\u00a0Rather You showed it with Your actions, how You sent Jesus Christ to die on the cross for our sins.\u00a0\u00a0Your love was not just words alone, but backed up by action.\u00a0\u00a0Similarly, I pray that my faith would not be just words alone, but would be backed up by my actions too.\u00a0\u00a0For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead too.\u00a0\u00a0In Jesus\u2019 name, AMEN!<\/em><\/div>\n
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Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is James 2:14-26.\u00a0\u00a0Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

On verses 14-26:\u00a0\u00a0What a powerful and hard-hitting passage.\u00a0\u00a0How do you reconcile this passage with other famous passages in the Bible like Ephesians 2:8 which clearly teach that \u201cit is by grace you have been saved, through faith\u2026not by works so that no one can boast\u201d?\u00a0\u00a0Is James saying here that you can earn your way to heaven by your own good works?\u00a0\u00a0No.\u00a0\u00a0Is he questioning whether faith in Jesus can really save you?\u00a0\u00a0No.\u00a0\u00a0Rather,\u00a0here James is defining what real saving faith in Christ looks like.\u00a0\u00a0If someone has real saving faith in Christ, that faith will express itself through action.\u00a0\u00a0Anyone can say, \u201cJesus is my Saviour\u201d, but whether or not that person truly believes that Jesus is their Saviour will become evident in how that person lives.\u00a0<\/p>\n

James is not saying that you need to live a perfect Christian life before it can be concluded that you have true saving faith. (As James will later write in chapter 3, “we all stumble in many ways” (James 3:2)).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6846,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6845"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6848,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6845\/revisions\/6848"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}