A Question I struggled on---2005

A Question I struggled on---2005

Here is a question I had some struggles with.. But thanks to a friend I got things a little bit more clear now.

“alirght.. to make my question clear to you.. this is what I asked k... "Real Faith Without Works is DEATH" James 2. 14--26
so when some christians say "believe.. and you are saved" --- wouldn't this saying be wrong?”

“You are a deep thinker and that’’s awesome! I love it and like to think that I am too…… I challenge you not to look to the bible as and answer book though, and start to see it as God’’s story to us, for us, and about us and now you find yourself in the midst of that story. Why? Because it we truly believe that the God is alive and his Spirit at work within us then answers aren’’t these things hidden somewhere in an archaic language that of the past. They are waiting before us to be discovered in the working our of our faith. As a believer in the way of Jesus I think we are to be contributing to an understanding of scripture by interacting with it.
Here is a bit of the history, and probably too much of my opinion on the answer to your question, and it’’s one of the hardest part of our faith to explain in a simple quick way. We are spending much time, and a whole book reviewing this topic with the servant leader team:
There are a lot of statement in the bible saying that belief and faith are ““all”” that it takes to be ““saved.”” What that of course that does, as I’’m sure this is what stirred up the question, is causes people to say they ““believe”” without ever living like it. Now of course we have to be careful not to judge others hearts, or their actions too quickly after coming to some kind of faith. I think it helps here to see ““conversion”” to Christianity as more of a dance. People have to learn to move in rhythm with God. For some it comes easier, but for many of us it takes years of practice, and there are always more styles to learn, more steps to remember, and more beats to count……just to say once you learn to waltz, God might want to salsa also! So back to the main point……if you have no works (i.e. your faith is ““dead””) are you still saved. Again I must reiterate that I think we are asking the wrong question. I think Jesus makes it fairly clear that he wants us to put our confidence in Him and not what we DO or anything else in this life.
Ok I’’ve been distracted so many times now I have to just sum up by saying this. If you have faith in me will you trust me by doing what I say? If you believe in me will you follow my way of doing things? Does simply thinking some thing make it a belief? Does having all the ““right answers”” and arguing all the ““right things”” equal faith?
That’’s a start.”