The scripture for today, June 29 (6/29), is John 6:29 as found in the New Testament of the Bible.
“Jesus answered, ‘The work of God is this: To believe in the one he has sent.’ “
Yes, it is true that the gift of salvation is just that ~ a gift, a free gift. And it is true that we cannot be good enough to earn salvation, because we don’t know how to be perfect, and heaven can only accept the perfect.
But at the same time, James 2:18 says “Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.” In other words, there are things we need to do to obtain salvation. We have to believe there is a gift for us somewhere, walk over to it, reach out, and grasp it.
Repenting is a work. And Jesus himself said believing (faith) is a work.
And how do we go about obtaining faith? By believing what other people tell us to believe? Romans 10:17 says faith comes by hearing/reading the Word of God ~ the Bible. Faith in the right thing is the result of going directly to God’s Words to find out for ourselves.
It takes a little bit of work to read through the Bible. But then, we can know what we believe is really true.
#faith, #belief, #work, #free, #gift, #salvation, #Bible
“What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”