Today we will be offering another lesson as a part of our Dispersed & Dedicated series in the book of James. Please open your Bible to James 2. Our study will begin in verse 14. The title of the message today is, “The Uselessness of Dead Faith”
To refresh our memories, in the last lesson we discussed the importance of not being partial to those who might assemble with us as guests or show favoritism to those who are members of the Lord’s church based on external appearances and socioeconomic status. We concluded that James was providing further instruction for how to have pure and undefiled religion as he covered three main points: care for the orphans, visit the widows in their distress, and show love to the poor. All of these works are near to the heart of God both in the Old and New Testament. Without these acts of love, our religion is worthless. Today we are going to see how James ties in our faith with our actions.
As we start this message, James will give us some practical examples of what it looks like to live out our faith. He will make three very strong points about how you cannot claim faith unless it is demonstrated in your actions (works). This is another way for James to emphasize that if we do not practice what we believe, our religion and our faith have no purpose and they are ineffective. He has already established that we cannot be a hearer of the word of God and not a doer of the word of God.
Let’s read James 2:14-26,
“14What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? 15If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, 16and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,’ and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? 17Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. 18But someone may well say, “You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” 19You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. 20But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless? 21Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? 22You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected; 23and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God. 24You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25In the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? 26For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.”
ILLUSTRATION: Faith & Works from the law of Moses to the present
Dead faith is useless because it is desolate (vs. 14-17)
“14What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? 15If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, 16and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? 17Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.”
You cannot say that you have faith if you don’t have works to back it up. Faith is no faith at all unless it is put into action (Titus 1:16). While I believe we are saved by faith, it must be the kind of faith that is described in the Bible. The real difference between dead faith and faith that is living is the type of faith that we practice in our life. We are not earning our salvation, for that is a gift from God through Jesus Christ. He died and gave His life as a gift well before I ever gave my life to Him. There is nothing that I can do that deems me worthy of the saving of my soul. Paul said we are saved by grace, through faith. It is not your doing, but it is a gift from God. It is not based on works lest any man should boast (Eph. 2:8-9). Does this contradict what James is saying here? The answer is absolutely not! The salvation of our souls is extended to us by grace. But it is through a biblical faith that we demonstrate our belief through service to the Lord and to others. If we simply say we have faith, but do nothing to serve the Lord and love others as commanded by Christ, we have dead faith. God’s grace is not extended to those that will not let faith work through love (Gal. 5:6). Paul will continue in Ephesians 2:10 to say,
“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”
Jesus said,
“Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do the things that I say?” (Luke 6:46)
Herein is the key to knowing whether we have a dead faith or a faith that is very much alive. Do you obey the Lord? Do you love and serve others? (II Cor. 5:10).
James offers a simple example to test our faith. Put yourself in the shoes of the individual mentioned here. You are standing in the back of the auditorium after a church service and a faithful brother or sister in Christ comes to you and says, “I am hungry and thirsty and with this weather changing I am cold because I don’t have a coat.” What do you do? Do you say the same thing that was mentioned in the text, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled” and then do not give them any help? James says your faith is dead because while you believed that your brother or sister was in need your faith was standing alone by itself and was not motivated by love to take action. You did nothing to meet the pressing needs before you. What kind of peace can someone have when they are destitute? Are your words going to fill their need for nutrition or warm them up physically? NO! (See Phil. 2:12-13) Jesus said, “to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.” (Matt. 25:40).
The question that James will ask is, "Can that kind of faith save a man?" This is a rhetorical question and the answer is a resounding “NO”. Not only will these types of faith not save you, because it is dead (empty) before God, it also fails to help others that you encounter in your daily life. Your faith is dead (by itself) according to James if you are not living out that faith. Unless we put to practice what we say we believe in our heart, we have a useless faith. It is a dead, empty, alone, isolated, or as we have called it, a desolate faith.
Truthfully, since faith requires works in order for it to be true Bible faith, we could say that someone who claims faith, and does not act upon it, has no faith at all. You are faithless if you are not actively serving the Lord and others based on what you know to be true. Consider for example that Paul told Timothy in I Timothy 5:8, that if a man does not provide for the needs of his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an infidel (unbeliever). Why is this true? Because God commands us to love and care for our family and by not doing what we are commanded by the Lord, we have a useless faith. It is that simple! We are not to love in word only but in deed and in truth (I John 3:18).
Dead faith is useless because it is demonic (vs. 18-20)
“18But someone may well say, “You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” 19You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. 20But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless?”
Show me your faith without the works! If someone says in response to this teaching: “I have faith and you have works...”, James asks the one who claims faith to prove it. How would you prove that you have faith in anything other than actions that were in line with what you claim to believe? There are many that say, there is no work that I have to do, all I have to do is have faith in Christ and put my trust in His work on the cross. Did you know that believing in the Lord Jesus is also works? In John 6:28 we find this question asked of Jesus, “What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?” Jesus replied, “This is the work of God that you believe in Him whom He sent.” While some interpret this to mean that there is no work to do but believe (mental assent or confession of faith), this is absolutely false. Jesus learned obedience by the things that He suffered and became the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey Him (Heb. 5:8-9). While the Bible teaches that we have to believe in Jesus to be saved, the type of faith that is required is a trusting faith that obeys His teaching (John 3:16, 36). Yes, Jesus even had work to do (John 4:34), and this included going to the cross to die for the sins of the world. He finished the work that God gave Him to accomplish (John 17:4). When He left this earth and was glorified He left us a great commission and His own commands that we need to follow as disciples of Jesus (Matt. 28:18-20). If we fail to put full trusting faith in Jesus we will be lost and have dead faith.
The point is simple. The example that James uses here is for someone who says, “I believe in God”, or “I believe in Jesus”. It is a good thing to believe in God as James confirms, “You do well”. You believe God is one! GREAT! It is also good to believe in Jesus as the Son of God. What he adds to this argument is that the demons of hell also believe the same thing. In Matthew 8:29, Jesus was about to heal two demon-possessed men. The demons spoke to Jesus and said, “What have you to do with us, O Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?” (This is referring to the time of their eternal damnation to hell). In this one phrase spoken by these evil demons, they acknowledged Jesus as the Son of God and thereby also acknowledged God as one. Did this save them? Certainly not! Did they confess Jesus as the Son of God? YES! Did they thereby claim to believe in God? YES! You can now see why merely confessing Jesus as the Son of God and believing in God in thought or in word, is not enough to demonstrate true Bible faith.
It is foolish to believe in God and His Son and not prove it by obedient faith. James is trying to show us that demons are in hell and they are believers. If they had faith, the issue must be with the way that they acted upon that belief. How do demons respond to what they know to be true about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? They obviously believe that God is real and yet they choose to serve Satan and do all kinds of wickedness. They clearly believed in Jesus based on what we read in the gospels, but they act contrary to His ministry. These demons certainly attempted to work in opposition to the Holy Spirit by filling the hearts of men that were void of Him. These demons do no repent. They do not abandon their evil ways. What if someone claimed to have faith in the Lord and you watched them continue to lie, cheat, steal, murder, and blaspheme the name of God. You would conclude that they have a dead faith or rather no faith at all. That is the conclusion that James reaches as well. It is also the position that we must stand firm on in our teaching of truth, opposing the many false doctrines in the world.
James wrote,
“But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless?”
Do you recognize this today? James says that the demon even “shudder” (fear and trembling) but they continue to rebel against the ways of righteousness.
The demons have faith without works and they are not saved. Just as the demons are bound in the devil’s hell and are lost, those that claim to have faith, but are not living in obedience to the Lord will join Satan and his evil forces in eternal hellfire.
The saddest part about this study today is that there are countless denominations in the world today that falsely proclaim that not only are we saved by “faith alone”, but “once we are saved we are always saved” (perseverance of the saints or eternal security are other names for this error). Neither of these doctrines has any biblical foundation whatsoever. We must come in obedience to the gospel of Christ and then do the work assigned to us by God in order to be found faithful before Him when life is over. Those that choose to live an unfaithful life before God are in jeopardy of losing their soul. We also must be careful that we don’t seek justification through the Law of Moses or manmade laws or we have fallen away, fallen from grace, been cut off and thrown away, and are severed from Christ (John 15:6; Romans 11:20-23; Hebrews 6:6; Gal 5:4; I Tim. 4:1). Don’t miss this truth! The best verse to illustrate what we are saying is, “Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.” (Col. 2:6). Paul described his own life as being conducted by faith in the Son of God who “loved me and gave Himself for me”. (Gal. 2:20).
Dead faith is useless because it is dead (vs. 21-26)
“21Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? 22You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected; 23and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God. 24You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25In the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? 26For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.”
Faith works with our works. James shows us the work of Abraham in obedience to the command of God to take his son Isaac up to Mount Moriah to sacrifice him. Abraham obeyed God and by faith was going to do exactly as the LORD commanded and this perfected his faith before God. At the moment that Abraham raised his hand to kill Isaac, an angel was sent to stop the hand of Abraham and God provided a ram caught in a bush to sacrifice instead. God knew the faith of Abraham, not by an intellectual assent or even something Abraham would say or confess, but only when his faith was put to practice in obedience to the voice of the LORD.
In Hebrews 11, we read about the faith of Abraham,
“By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; it was he to whom it was said, ‘In Isaac your descendants shall be called.’ He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type.”
Abraham believed that God could raise Isaac, so he proceeded. The symbol here of course is that when God provided a ram to die in place of Isaac, it was a shadow of Christ dying in our place, allowing us to live. God provided the sacrifice. In the same way, by sparing Isaac, the promise made to Abraham could be fulfilled; Jesus could be born through that lineage and ultimately become the Savior of the world to those who would come in trusting faith to Him. The faith of Abraham being demonstrated by His obedience to the commands of God allowed for these events to unfold. The other shadow or type was that just as Jesus was resurrected from the dead after three days, we now have the hope of the resurrection unto eternal life after our earthly life is over.
James argues, “as a result of the works, faith was perfected”. But notice that even after obedience to the voice of God, Abraham did not merit anything, nor did he have a reason to boast as if he had earned a righteous standing before God. The Scriptures say, “And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness”, and he was called the friend of God. What an honor to be called a friend of God. He was simply called a “believer” and this faith included him putting belief into action and doing what God commanded. Jesus said similarly, “You are my friend if you do what I command you.” (John 15:14) We don’t earn his friendship, but when we love Him in obedience, he befriends us.
We are justified by works and not by faith alone. Here is the easiest way to understand this from a biblical perspective. The only time “faith alone”, appears in the Bible is in this passage and it says that we are not saved by faith alone.
This is where many denominations will argue that God already credited Abraham with righteousness before Abraham ever attempted to make the sacrifice of Isaac on the altar. They do this by pointing to the fact that James quotes Genesis 15:6 where the Bible says that Abraham believed God is it was credited to him as righteousness. There are two ways to view this verse. First, consider that the events of God’s promise to Abraham that he would have a son through whom all the nations would be blessed took place decades before Genesis 22 where Abraham offers Isaac on the altar at Mount Moriah. If we conclude that Abraham simply saying to God that he believed constituted faith that saves, then Abraham didn’t need to do anything to demonstrate his faith. By James quoting Genesis 15 and saying that it is fulfilled in the obedience of Abraham in Genesis 22, he is proving his point that true faith includes works of obedience to God. Does God consider us right with Him if we are still walking in disobedience? NO. There are some that not only preach the wrong way to come to Jesus but they also teach once saved always saved and they are convinced that no matter what someone does, that grace will override or cover it. Does God know what is in our hearts before we ever act on His will or against His will? YES. Is God able to give us credit in advance of our obedience to Him because He knows that we will eventually obey Him? He can do anything! What does the word of God teach us here? We have to base our faith in the Bible and the Bible calls for a faith that works.
Many in the denominational world will try to piggyback on Paul and say that God considered Abraham righteous before he ever received the mark of the circumcision which was another command of God. This was commanded in Genesis 17. God made a covenant with Abraham and told him that the male children of Israel had to be circumcised as a sign of the covenant and anyone among the Israelites that did not get circumcised would be cut off from his people and they have broken the covenant of God. So God made the covenant and issued its decrees and in order to keep the covenant the male children had to have their foreskin removed or they were in violation of the agreement and outside of the blessings of God. Have you ever wondered what would have happened if the Israelites were never circumcised? Would they still be considered men of faith in God? The answer is obvious. If you break a covenant with God you are not in righteous standing with Him. This would be evident by obedience or disobedience. On the day God commanded circumcision; they were all obedient (Gen. 17:23-27). Faith without believing and diligently seeking God will not please Him (Hebrews 11:6).
Many people see a contradiction in how Paul argues in Romans 4 that Abraham was not justified by his works otherwise he could take glory in and boast in his own righteousness (vs. 1-2) in comparison to James. Instead of the word contradiction, I would offer the word complement. Paul and James are writing to two different audiences. In Romans, Paul is dealing with the battle between those who want to be justified by the law of Moses as opposed to being saved by the blood of Christ and living in the freedom of the gospel. James is writing to those that struggle with saying that they trust Jesus, but the concern is that they wouldn’t live as faithful followers of His commands to love and serve both God and their fellow man.
Right after stating that Abraham was not justified by works, Paul quotes the same text as James and says, “For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.’ (vs. 3). Let me remind you that this was stated before Abraham was obedient by faith. While some see this as proof that we are righteous regardless of works, James complements Paul’s teaching by bringing the two together. Faith is not faith if it lacks the works of faith. These are not works of the Law to merit salvation, but to humbly obey the Lord out of love.
The most important questions before us are when did God know that Abraham feared Him and how did God know he had faith? If you go back and read Genesis 22, where this historic record is found, it wasn’t until after Abraham saddled a donkey, put together supplies for a sacrifice, took his son on the journey to Mount Moriah, and then prepared to kill his son, that it was said, “for now I know that you fear God.” This is another way of saying, “now I know that you believe”. When Abraham did all of these things he was not attempting to earn anything. He merely trusted God and had true Bible faith that works the works (commands) of God.
Back in Romans, Paul points out that if we work to earn our salvation and righteousness before God, we could consider it a wage (something owed to us by God for our labor) instead of a favor (something freely given by God). The one who does not work, but believed in God as the justifier of the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.
His focus, if you look at the immediate context, is that we are not to work the works of the old Law with the intent to claim that God owes us something. Paul adds a quote from David as well expressing how blessed we are indeed to have the gift of the forgiveness of God apart from works that we could do to earn righteousness (vs. 4-8). Paul will spend the entirety of Romans explaining how we have to obey the Lord Jesus Christ, but that this obedience doesn’t nullify the fact this it is a gift (See Roman 6:3-4, 12-14, 17-19, 22-23). Paul speaks directly about the obedience of faith at the close of his letter to the Romans (Romans 16:25-27). He is not opposed to obedient faith but opposed to someone boasting that their work would save them, especially if they were trying to keep the Law of Moses when Christ fulfilled that law and establishes the New Covenant in His blood.
The point that many miss here is that Paul is contrasting works of the Law with having faith in God and His Son Jesus. No one will be justified by the works of the Law. We know this because the Law could never be kept perfectly and if we stumble at one point, we are guilty of it all. Paul is comparing what it is like to live under the Law of Moses with being under the law of liberty, which is the law of Christ, which we have already studied in James in former lessons. Just because we are under the grace of Jesus and not under the law of Moses, Paul argues that we can never use this as a license to live with a dead faith.
James points out that we are to look intently at ourselves in the law of Christ to make necessary changes to our lives spiritually while learning to serve the Lord and others. But by no means are we earning or meriting salvation, but simply loving God in obedience to His word for the grace that He has extended to us in Christ Jesus our Lord.
God made a plan which included sending His Son Jesus to die on the cross and by his death, He would fulfill the Law of Moses. He came to be the promised Messiah of the prophets, the hope of the psalmist that wrote of His suffering for our sins and the redeeming of our souls.
Since God knew in advance of this plan that was made before the foundation of the world, we could argue that God also called us all righteous even before we come in trusting faith to Him. This is part of a Calvinistic doctrine of “imputed righteousness” and it is also error. The argument goes that if Adam committed a sin and the curses of that sin fell to all of us that because Christ died for sin, that His righteousness is provided to all of us. Along with that error is the doctrine of total hereditary depravity that carries the idea that we are born into sin and this is false. The person who sins will die is what the Bible teaches. All have sinned, but we are not born that way.
We come under the curse when we choose to sin. We are not born into sin nor are we credited with Adam’s sin. Death passed unto all men because all have sinned. Likewise, when Jesus went to the cross to die, His righteousness and the ending of the curse do not automatically get passed out to all men everywhere. Yes, it is true that in Adam all die, and in Christ, all are made alive. Yes, it is true that Jesus became sin so that we could become righteous. We have to ask, what does it take for us to be in Christ so that we can be blessed with His righteousness? Paul dealt with that as we mentioned earlier in Romans 6. We are baptized into Christ by faith (Col. 2:12 [Christian circumcision]; Mark 16:16).
Technically, everything was in the mind and foreknowledge of God, and therefore if God knew that I would have a good heart and would eventually become a devout servant of His, he could have declared me righteous in advance of my life of faithfulness before Him.
God does not choose to extend righteousness in this way. This means that we are not excused from responding to the Lord in humble obedience by faith to the word of God. The point is that since we are under the law of Christ today, there are still directives that we must follow and there is work that must be accomplished in order to demonstrate our faith. The fact remains that salvation and righteousness are still a gift and we would never boast in anything other than the cross of Christ and the grace extended to us by God as a gift of His love.
We don’t attempt to earn or merit anything by our obedience to the Lord. We understand that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord with all of our being (heart, soul, mind, and strength) and the second commandment is just like it; to love our neighbor as ourselves. We show this love by how we conduct ourselves by faith each and every day.
Jesus said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” He doesn’t say if you want to earn your way to heaven you have to keep my commandments. I would be a fool to stand up on judgment day and tell God that I deserve a place in His eternal presence because of all that I did for Him as a part of His kingdom/church. It would be ludicrous to think that I would even mention a single act of love shown, or even hint at the idea that I served Him in some way that would give me the right to demand eternal life as my prize or reward. Even after all of my works are done in the kingdom they are but filthy rags and I rely fully upon the work of Jesus on the cross. His blood was shed in love for our salvation. We simply reply in love through Bible faith.
The beauty of all of this is that the Lord will remember every time that I have shown how much I love Him by living in accordance with His divine will for my life. He doesn’t forget our labor of love (Heb. 6:10) The Bible mentions that when this life is over and those in Christ are called to our eternal rest that our works do follow us (Rev. 14:13). This doesn’t mean that we earned anything, but that God will recall all that we have done and allow us to rest from these labors in His presence. In addition, we are told that the righteous acts of the saints will be represented by the white garments that we wear in the presence of God. These are those that have been washed in the blood of Jesus and lived for Him (Revelation 7:13-15). Our service by faith on earth will one day come to a close and we will find rest for our souls in the shelter of the presence of God and His Son Jesus Christ. What a day that will be! (See Rev. 22:12).
James offers one final example in the story of Rahab. When two messengers were sent on a mission from God and they were about to be apprehended by the authorities, Rahab hid these men on the roof of her house allowing them to continue in the work that God had assigned to them by sending them out another way. For this work, she is called a woman of faith. She didn’t earn anything, she simply acted out of love and God honors those that love him and want to serve His holy purposes. It would be crazy for anyone to suggest that Rahab earned God’s favor, for she was merely doing what any person who claims faith would do. She was a harlot, among a people that were Gentiles and enemies of God. This gives us all hope that whether Jew or Greek, bond or free, male or female, that there is salvation available to us by faith in Jesus Christ our Lord. Praise be to God! (See Hebrews 11:31).
The real difference is the motivation behind your actions. If you want to be like those who stand in the presence of God and proclaim all of the good things that you do, as opposed to one who hangs his head, beating your chest and saying “God be merciful to me a sinner”, the motives are clear. No one will be able to stand before God and say like those in Matthew 7, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name… work miracles in your name…” and then list off all of the deeds that we have done to gain an advantage. Those who come to boast will be told, “Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness” and “I never knew you”. Yet, it was in that same text that Jesus emphasized the importance of obedience to His word (Matt. 7:21-23). We are all sinners and we cannot earn salvation. If we could have done it on our own, Jesus wouldn’t have died on the cross. We say with Paul “by the grace of God” I am saved and I cannot boast in anything but the cross of Christ my Savior. Because He is my Savior, I will serve Him faithfully. I will live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.
Any effort made to serve the Lord God is motivated by love for Him and out of appreciation for all that He has done to redeem us at the cost of the precious bloodshed on the cross. While we have concluded that works do not earn anything, James makes it clear that your faith is dead unless it is active in faithful service to the Lord. Like a body (corpse) without the animation of the spirit, so is faith without works. Faith that saves is faith that obeys.
Today we have learned that faith is useless and dead without works because:
- Dead faith is desolate (alone and empty)
- Dead faith is demonic (demons believe but are lost in hell)
- Dead faith is dead (faith requires obedience or it is not alive)
You might be asking, what must I do to be saved? Some in the religious world will say, there is nothing you can do because Christ did it all. Others might say that all you have to do is believe and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord (Acts 16:30), but they never read the rest of the context where the jailer and his whole house were baptized into Christ. Some will try to lead you to say a sinners prayer, which is not found anywhere in the Bible. The correct answer to the question, “what must I do to be saved?” is found in the Bible (Acts 2:36-41): after hearing the good news about Jesus and how He died for your sins, you believe that He is the Son of God and you repent of your sins and express a desire to change your life. You confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you are baptized by immersion in water for the forgiveness of your sins after which you are raised up to walk in the newness of life. You are then given the gift of the Holy Spirit and will devote the remainder of your life on earth in service to the Lord and His church from a heart full of gratitude for the grace that has been shown to you. That is the Bible answer.
If you want to study further about this, please let us know and we would be happy to explore what the Bible teaches. There is not one case of conversion to Christ in the New Testament, where those who put their faith in Christ did not do exactly as we have shared in this lesson. This is the gospel answer to coming to Jesus in true Bible faith.
Maybe you are a Christian and you have not been walking in the ways that are right. You know that the Lord asks us to acknowledge our sins, confess them and pray for one another so that all of our unrighteousness will be cleansed again. There are false doctrines out there that tell you that God’s love and grace will overlook the sins you commit. They teach that Christ and His blood will offer you perpetual cleansing without any further repentance on your part. This is unbiblical. We are told to repent, confess and pray, asking God to forgive. If I can pray for you over some spiritual matter in your life, let me know how I can help you to return to faithful service in the Lord.
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