Works

The average person, when questioned why they believe that they will go to Heaven when they die, will say that it’s because they’ve lived a good life.  Faith and works go hand-in-hand, so it is easy to confuse the two.  However, even though we know that it is faith that saves, works are equally important – not because one must earn his place into Heaven, but because the lack of works is an indication of a lack of saving faith in the first place.  Faith without good works is dead.

Faith

I hope you will forgive me for taking a step backward for a few weeks.  In order to fully address what makes a person a disciple, it is necessary to first examine what makes one saved in the first place.  This is a question that, on the surface, looks fairly straightforward.  However, given the wide range of responses to this question, it’s critical we set a foundation to work upon.

Am I a disciple?

When I was growing up, it was pretty simple to be able to tell whether you were a Christian or not.  Actually, it boiled down to a simple yes/no question:  “Have you ever been baptized?”  If yes, congrats!  Go bask in the warm glow of eternal life.  If no… so sorry, not yet – but we can fix that with little fuss.  It was quick, simple, easy, and you could go on with your daily life uninterrupted.  In essence, we humans could make God save anyone we wanted just by doing one quick ritual.

Jesus never said that being a follower of him was easy, and he also made it clear that not everyone who claimed to follow him would truly be saved.  

Welcome to Mature Manhood of Christ!

This blog was created with two intentions.  The first intent is purely personal; it is a journal of sorts for myself.  I strive to put importance on reading the Bible and books on theology, and find it disheartening how much bad teaching and bad theology is in the world.  Therefore, I’m writing my own findings, my own beliefs, my own convictions.  In this, I hold the Bible as the ultimate authority; not my own personal preferences and convictions.  I do the best that I can to not interpret the Bible in order to give preference to my own particular feelings and thoughts.  It is the Word of God, not just some literary text.

The second purpose of this blog is to be instructional.  I do not pretend to be anything more than a layman; I am not formally educated in theology or religion (yet) and have only my own faith and understanding to stand upon.  However, God equips all true believers to understand His Word, and the Bible makes many facts plain which many churches choose to ignore.  I would like to share my findings to you, from one believer to another.

This brings me to another point – if you have not accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, then a lot of what I talk about on this blog may not make sense.  If you are a nonbeliever and are reading this, I’m happy that you have interest and want to learn more, and would be happy in helping you in your faith.  However, the articles here probably will not be a good place to start.  After all, when learning anything new, you don’t start with the more technical details.  A child begins learning math with addition and subtraction, after all, not fractions and cosines.

Join me each week as I talk about different points of theology, the Bible, and Christian life!

for His glory,

Mark

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