Faith and Works

Today's scripture mastery is James 2:17-18

17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.

 18 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.

James here teaches what the correlation is between faith and works.  There are some misunderstandings between our church and other Christian faiths over our understanding of the importance of faith and works.  Some churches believe that faith only is necessary, and some claim that since we emphasize that we must have works, that we are somehow diminishing or denying the Grace of Christ.

Here is a verse that seems to teach that(Ephesians 2:8-9):

 8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.

I think that we sometimes talk past each other on this issue, based on our understanding of the scriptures.  I hope to explain what we believe in a way that doesn't do that.

We absolutely believe in the Grace of Christ.  Through his atoning sacrifice in Gethsemane and on the Cross, He made it possible for any of us to return to His presence.  Without His Grace, NONE OF US will be able to return to God.  We are all imperfect, and we have all sinned.  That is not something that we can overcome by ourselves, no matter how many works we do.  We absolutely need Christ.  Without question, we need Him!

The works in the gospel comes naturally in our lives when we believe the gospel.  When we have faith in Christ, we naturally desire to do what He wants us to do.  Christ himself taught this: "If ye love me, keep my commandments" (John 14:15)

We teach the importance of works(works meaning keeping the commandments, and serving others,etc), because Christ himself taught that.  We know that any works that we do does not make up for our shortcomings.  But we do it 1) to show our faith as James taught, 2) to show our Love and gratitude to Christ, and 3) to try and bring the blessings we have received through the gospel to our fellow man.

Faith and Works go hand in hand.  It is very difficult, I would say impossible even, to really have one without the other.  If we don't yet have faith, but we follow the commandments, our faith will develop and grow.  If we really have faith, we will be restless and uncomfortable unless we DO the things that Christ has taught.

I really like the parable that Alma taught about faith.  He compared faith to a seed.  It is found in Alma 32:28-43.  I don't have room here to quote the whole thing, but Alma teaches that if we don't yet have faith, we can test it by "planting" the seed of faith, watering and nurturing it(i.e. works), and waiting for it to grow.  If it grows, we know it is a good seed, and we now have faith.  He continues to say that we must continue to water it and nurture that seed of faith (i.e. continue to do works)--because if we don't the seed will wither and die (our faith will diminish and die).  This is not because the faith was not true faith, but that without the works, our faith cannot be sustained.