The Committed Faith

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. (James 2:18-26)

 Wait a minute, Ephesians 2:8-9 says we are saved by faith and not works, yet James 2:18-26, says "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also." This sounds like a contradiction! Let's look at some other verses.

And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. (Luke 7:37-38)

Jesus in reference to this women says:

And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace. (Luke 7:50)

Similarly:

And he cried, saying, Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me. And they which went before rebuked him, that he should hold his peace: but he cried so much the more, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stood, and commanded him to be brought unto him: and when he was come near, he asked him, Saying, What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee? And he said, Lord, that I may receive my sight. And Jesus said unto him, Receive thy sight: thy faith hath saved thee. And immediately he received his sight, and followed him, glorifying God: and all the people, when they saw it, gave praise unto God. (Luke 18:38-43)

We see that faith is required to be saved, but it is our action that takes us from believing like the devils mentioned in James 2:19, to a faith that is justified by works or a committed faith, as shown by the examples in James 2:21 to 25, Luke 7:37 to 28 and Luke 18:38 to 43. 


Let me give a personal example of this: before I was saved, I was struggling with a relationship that I had with a Christian woman who had always referred to us as "just friends" for the fifteen years we knew each other. I prayed to the Lord, "Lord, I think that I love her and would like to pursue this relationship further, but Lord whatever You decide I will abide by." A few months later I became a Christian, and immediately after I received Jesus as my Lord and Savior, this prayer came to my mind. Then I heard the Lord's voice say, "Okay!"  The Lord had given me his approval but I still had to act in faith by persuing a further relationship with this woman. So I acted on my faith, and we became boyfriend and girlfriend for two days, got engaged, and four weeks later we were married to the shock of everyone. As well my now wife was also seeing what James said in verse 2:18, "I will shew thee my faith by my works," being played out in my new found life in Jesus.


It is this committed faith that inspires us into action, a faith that grows because we act on it. It is not a faith that believes until hardship comes or fades with time, for that isn't true faith.


When we marry we usually have a faith in our love for one another, but we need to see this faith played out in our marriages by our actions. It is these actions that move our faith closer and closer to a reality.

The Truth

To the Jews who had believed Him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:31-32)

I spent years commuting two hours a day to my place of work and many of those hours were listening to Bible tapes and sermons. If you really want to know the Bible, I highly recommend it. There is something about listening to the Word of God; it has a way of sinking into your every day thoughts.

Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. (Romans 10:17)

Your actions become very attuned to the Word of God.  Even when I struggle with the things of the world, I find that the Word drives me towards God and not away from Him. I have come to the point where I know that every word of the Bible is true and that I can live my life by it. It is a comforting feeling to know that you don't have to look for the truth in other things when you know that you have found it. That is freedom.

In our marriages if we hold to the Lord's teachings, "Then you will know the truth," this is trust and in a trusting relationship we will have freedom from sin that can destroy our marriages.

Peace

For God is not a God of disorder but of peace. (1 Corinthians 14:33)

For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (Ephesians 2:14-22)

There are times when I am offended by one of my brothers or sisters in Christ.  And with this offence I sometimes feel the peace of God waning from within me as well. This is usually a good sign that I have let things go too far. For example, if someone has misrepresented the Word or the Lord, I usually want to jump in and set things straight. But there usually is a point at which I get a check in the spirit to stop.

He who covers over an offense promotes love, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends. (Proverbs 17:9)

Even though we may be right, there is a point at which a matter can take away our peace and lead to disorder. Are we listening to the Holy Spirit and His still small voice of peace saying, "STOP!" or are we allowing our pride to speak and say "I am right."

In our marriages sometimes it is not about who is right or wrong, it's about who listens to that still small voice saying "STOP."

Love and Truth

(Joh 8:31-32) To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
(Joh 8:34-36) Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
God is love; God is also holy; God is never changing, and He is many more things. However, God places so much importance on love, the Bible says the following:
(Joh 3:16) For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
(1Co 13:13) And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
He sent “his one and only Son” to die on a cross because of his great love for us. He didn’t just die for the good people of the world; He also died for the Hitlers and the Stalins, both the good and the evil. This utterly amazes me, such great love I can not comprehend it, but it is true! He took our sentence of death because of our sin and nailed it to his cross and cleanses our sins with his blood. God even placed love above faith and hope!
But it wasn’t His love that saved me, it was His truth. I didn’t learn of His love for me until after I was saved. At this time in my life, I believed that if you did the sins you were responsible for the consequence of those sins. It was the truth that the Cross took away the consequence of death that was on my head (because of those sins), that set me free. 
Love may lead the lost to the truth, but you still have to give them the truth of their sinful state.  If Christians had just loved me, I would not be saved today. Sometimes the truth may seem like a hard thing for a lost person to bear, but given in love and in grace it will be easier for them to accept.
(Joh 4:23-24) Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."
Truth is important in our relationship with both God and our spouse; it is what freedom is born of. It is what allows us to rise above our fallen state in our worship of God. It is what opens the doors to trust and openness with our spouse. Love, but don’t neglect the truth.

Not Just Words

It's been awhile but I never gave up on the Oneness blog and the Lord has been showing me things. In recent days I've been commenting on other blogs and one of the things I noticed was that there were a lot of disputes about words.

If anyone teaches false doctrines and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, he is conceited and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between men of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain. (1 Timothy 6:3-5)

Usually when people get down to the point of disputes about words, the above verses probably apply to the situation to some extent. Don't get me wrong, words are important but I would say that there is something much more important than words.
Let me take you back to the time before I became a Christian.  I had read the Bible twice and was working on my third time through. Each time I read it I analyzed it looking for some special meaning that would feed my desire for knowledge or maybe even use it to feed some fleshly desire. Let's just say I didn't get either; the fact of the matter is that each read through was boring and in some places confusing. On the third read through I received Jesus as my Lord and Savior and there was an explosion!  The Bible came alive, and every word now seemed to jump off the page!
So what happened? A relationship happened.  Now when I read the verses, the Holy Spirit is there to teach me what every book, every chapter, every verse and every word means. I don't need a dictionary to tell me what a word means -- He is there sharing with me the truth of His Word; I am not alone! If some verses I read give me great joy, He is there to share that joy with me. If the verses made me sad He is there to lift me up. If I am guilty, He is there to set me free and if I am wounded He heals me.
The Bible is not just about the words within it; it is about the revelation and the relationship created between God and His creation. God is speaking to us through His word, the Bible, but we still need to listen and ask Him questions using His Word to know Him and what is on His heart. If we fight over the words and their meanings we lose out on the relationship with God and others.  It truly does become what Paul said to Timothy in 1 Tim. 6:3-5.
This is also true for all of our relationships, especially the relationship between a husband and wife. When we talk, we also need to listen and ask questions, get to know each other and learn what is on each others heart. How many arguments have started or marriages ended because of words being misunderstood?

The Attribute of Creation

Before we move off of the creation of the marriage relationship by God, we should look at one more verse in Genesis 3.

Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living. (Gen. 3:20)

In this verse we read that it is Eve that holds the attribute of creation within the Oneness of marriage. Nowhere in the Bible does it say something similar for man. In fact, man is completely excluded from the birth of Christ! This is something that a man had no part in; it was God and the woman. We even see God speaking of this attribute of Creation in the woman when he pronounces the punishment on both the serpent and the woman:

And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel." To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children." (Gen. 3:15-16)

Although man has a part in the creation process, we see that God has associated the miracle of creation through child birth in the woman. This attribute of creation association with the woman is so important that we read:

For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety. (1Tim. 2:13-15)

If we remember that the creation of man and the creation of marriage was to be the image of God and the relationship within the Trinity, we see that this attribute of creation is mirroring the attribute of creation in Christ or the Son within the Trinity:

For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. (Col. 1:13-16)

God has placed different attributes within both men and women which become evident within the marriage relationship. We have a greater understanding of God and the Trinity through ourselves and our marriage relationship because of the attributes of God that He has placed within each of us. Each of these attributes point to Him and we must remember this.
Husbands, remember that the creation attribute is a gift given to your wife and an attribute that reflects rgw oneness within the Trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit). It is something that should be reverenced, for it is a gift from God from which we have insight into the awesome God of creation.
Note:
To couples that do not have children or can’t; the attribute of creation through child bearing is a potential that God has put in all of women. It is knowledge of the fact that as a husband and wife we have the potential to create through child bearing. If we physically can’t have children for some medical reason, we still have the knowledge and will that comes from this creation attribute from God; it still has the power to give us an insight into God. By the way, even within medical issues, I still believe in miracles.

The Fall

In my previous blog entry we saw what God had intended for a man and a woman within a marriage before the fall. Let’s now take a look at the consequences of the fall and its impact on the relationship within a marriage.  Let start with the women.  If we fast forward to the New Testament we find the following:

Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. (Eph. 5:22-24)

Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. (Col. 3:18)

Most women are probably asking, “Why do I have to submit?” The answer to this is because she didn’t submit to the truth of God’s word which was, You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die (Gen. 2:17). Eve was probably told this truth by either God or Adam or maybe both, but she chose to ignore it and ate of the fruit. So now wives must submit to their husbands because Eve failed to.
Now let's look at the man:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body. (Eph. 5:24-30)

Now let’s see how these verses refer back to Genesis. At the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Adam was there with Eve when she fell.  He should have been her savior. Where was the love when Adam watched and listened to the temptation of Eve and her eventual fall?  He knew what would happen! So because Adam did not love and stand up for Eve and save her from her fall, he is now commanded to do both; he is to love her and be her savior when she needs saving. Even if she doesn’t submit and falls, he is still to be there to pick her up and love her, for this is what a savior does. If a person is about to fall into a river with a fast current you can save them before they fall in, but you can also save them if they have fallen into the river. So husbands love your wives and be ready to save them before and after they fall.