Romans 3:27-28
27 Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the law that requires faith. 28 For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.
Have you given it much thought to how you justify your belief in God?
If you had a scale and on one side you put in the good works you do, like going to church, reading your bible, praying, being kind and generous, telling the truth, donating to charity, etc. Then on the other side you put in faith, your full belief, devotion, trust, your heart, body, mind, and soul. How would it look?
Take a step back and look at the scale. Is it leaning to one side or the other? What would you say, 70% faith and 30% works or maybe 60% works and 40% faith? Maybe it is equally balanced. You know, just the right amount of work and faith?
Paul would say the scale is tipped 100% faith and 0% works when it comes to our belief in God. Let’s not confuse the scripture where James ties faith and works together.
James 2:26
26 As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.
There is a subtle difference when we look at faith and work. It boils down to the matter of the heart. The question resides in the motive of the heart. Is it love or performance?
In business, there is a big push for companies to determine their “WHY”; why they are doing what they are doing. The truly great companies start with their WHY, whereas, mediocre companies start with their “WHAT” they are doing. Can you see the heart in this analogy? God does not want our WHAT, He wants our WHY. He knows when we lead with our WHY, the WHAT always follows.
Faith is about our WHY. We believe in God because we love Him. We finally came to the point in our life where our WHAT we were doing betrayed us, left us crushed in spirit. We love God because we now know we can’t do it on our own and we need someone to rescue us. There is nothing left of our performing that works anymore. We are stripped to our core. Down on our knees, we come to Jesus broken, empty, and ready to believe. This is true faith.
In that moment, the scale is tipped 100% to faith. There is not one thing that you can put on the performance side of the scale that will help. On the contrary, until the scale is fully tipped towards faith, we won’t receive what God has to offer. There can’t be a trace of performance that we may be tempted to boast of our efforts.
Ephesians 2:8-9
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.
Imagine for a minute that if works were the criteria for faith and for earning God’s favor, then only the strong, with a high IQ and was wealthy could truly compete for their good work and could be measured. Maybe by quantity? The better sales number or better strategy could get the edge. I don’t know about you, but in this scheme of things, I give up. I don’t see me winning anything.
Once we have found true faith in Christ, performance takes on a whole new meaning. It will be impossible to receive the forgiveness of Christ without being changed on the inside. This change will drive your works going forward. It will be compassion, love, and gratitude that is behind your works. No longer will it be to earn favor, but rather a heart’s desire to serve others for what God has done for you. So, when Paul says faith without work is dead, he means that those who claim to love Jesus and there is no sign of loving works, then faith must be dead.
It’s my belief that at the very beginning of our faith journey, the scale is tipped fully in favor of faith. However, once we receive Christ through our faith journey, from that point forward until we die, will be God working through us to tip the scale to do His works – that someday, because of our faith, the scale will be 100% tipped toward His work. A little secret…do not try to add your selfish works to the scale thinking you help God a little to hurry up His goal.
Ask yourself today, why are you performing? Is it to earn something or someone’s favor or because you love God and Him doing His works through you?
Just a Thought…
