10.01.2005

Are we so foolish?

note: from Jay Miklovic -- This blog post was worded very poorly, the intent was to address the notion of works justification and sanctification, and how we fall back into a mentality that we must work to receive grace. I understand that it may have come accross that doing good works is bad. That is ridiculous, I will address this more clearly in the next post which should be later today. (Sorry for any confusion) I left the post in its orginal context below, just remeber when reading that when I mention works I am speaking or justification by works. --

Galatians 3:3
3Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?

Why is it that works are ingrained into our hearts and souls, and why is it that we never seem to be totally purged from them? I read again Paul's epistle and it is so evident that too often I am just like the foolish Galatians. Don't we all fall back into the works mentality at some point or other? Think of when we find ourselves committing a sin that we were sure we had once repented of. We struggle and struggle and we question our faith, we question how genuine we were when we had repented in the first place. When this happens it seems that nine times out of ten we will then resort to works to alieviate our discomfort. For instance you sin and instantly you express the need to commit to reading your bible more, and praying more, and fasting, and whatever other good work you may think of. It is as if we try to work our way out of the sin we have committed. Are we so foolish? Were we not saved despite our sin, independent of our works? Yet being justified by faith only are we now going to try to work for the forgiveness of the rest of our sins? My question to anyone reading this is this: Are you trying to work your way out of a sin? Are you attempting to do works to make up for your unfaithfulness? Stop! It was by faith that you were justified, and it is now by faith that you are sanctified. Good works should be our desire as a result of justification at all times, regardless of past sin, but should never be thought of as a contribution to our justification.

There is a lot more that I want to talk about today, and maybe tonight or tommorrow I will get to it, but I am not sure. I have been given some pretty interesting insight that has allowed me to see a little more clearly the arguement between Calvinism and Arminianism, and I am not so sure that either side is totally aware of what the other side believes, and if they are I think there are somethings that both sides intentionally ignore or simply reject because they are more comfortable with their own system of belief.

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