Faith and Works

John 14:12 Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.

Our works pour out of our faith. Christianity begins with faith alone.

Ephesians 2:8-9 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Grace isn’t Grace if you have to earn it!

If we try to get to Heaven on our good works, it’s like saying that what Jesus Christ did wasn’t enough. Salvation is based on His work. What He did!

But Ephesians 2:10 says that as believers we are to work for Him though. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

Once we are born again, good works will flow out of us. We don’t do them because He needs it, or because we should. It is a privilege to serve the King of Kings!

I had a thought about when Jesus said that “he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do”… our Pastor had explained that greater just meant more because Jesus was only on earth for a short time and we would have longer. But I thought about Christ’s works and He says that His work is to Glorify the Father. So that means that’s our work too.

It was easy for Jesus to Glorify God because He was perfect and had lived with Him in Heaven. But every time we do something that’s hard or we don’t want to do, because we feel like it’s what Jesus would do, whether it’s giving up our time to help someone, or forgiving someone or sharing the gospel when it would be so much easier to be quiet, then we are glorifying God. So God may very well see our efforts as great works when we do them with the right motive.