Dear Friend…

Dear Friend,

      When I was investigating the Church, I ran into this question and this kind of opposition quite a bit. After much prayer and study, I discovered what members of the Church actually mean when we say, "Faith without works is dead." I think a lot times this statement gets misconstrued. When I was young in the Church I believed that this meant that I was required to do good works in order to get into heaven, that my faith in Christ was not enough for me to get back home to my Father in Heaven. As I have grown in my faith and studied more, I have come to realize that this means something so much more. Let me explain this a little more in depth. Matthew 7:21 states, "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in Heaven." I know of several people who have claimed a deep faith in Christ, but it is an empty faith. They do not go forth and "feed his sheep" or serve others. They just say I believe in Christ and that is as far as their faith goes. To me what this indicates is that they are not completely converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Someone who has handed their heart to Christ WANTS to serve, they look for opportunities to serve others. Another example of this is Matthew 19:17. It says, "And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, leap the commandments." The commandments that Christ is referring to are not only the ten commandments from the Old Testament, he is also referring to the commandments given by him such as, "Love one another, as I have loved you." Good works are simply acts of love. And Christ as commanded us to love others. And if we believe in Christ and have faith in him we follow his commandments. Ephesians 2:10 teaches almost this exact principle. One thing that it mentions that I find fascinating is the fact that Paul says, "We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus." To me this summons the image of modeling our behavior after the Savior. What did the Savior do in his ministry? He went about doing good. If we profess to have faith in Christ, shouldn't we also go about doing good? Something else that should be brought up is in Revelations 20:12-13. It tells us that we will be judged for our works. Which to me sounds pretty scary. I don't know about you, but I have definitely made some mistakes and sinned. Which means I won't have all good things to talk about during that judgement. But guess what saves us? Our faith in Christ! 2 Nephi 25:23 says, "For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we KNOW THAT IT IS BY GRACE THAT WE ARE SAVED, AFTER ALL WE CAN DO." In summary my friend, our good works don't save us. Our faith in Christ does. I think that the faith of somebody truly converted to Christ begets good works.

Mandi