Why Try To Be Perfect If Salvation Is By Faith?

Q. If we are not saved by works is it necessary or even beneficial to try to be perfect? Better yet what is the point if we are not actually trying to be perfect but just drawing an extremely conservative line by the world’s standards or even the standards of other Christians?

To begin to answer this we must know what a Christian is. A Christian is one who abides in Jesus and trust him not only in death but in everyday life, through repentance and trusting faith. Conservative or Liberal, in the end its all about how people relate to sin, God, and the Bible. If we want to call ourselves liberal towards sin and the Bible we therefore strip the strict bounds of God, Authority, moral absoluteness and justice. To say someone is Conservative should just mean towards sin, the Bible and God and that these are the authority in the matters of sin, God and the Bible.

We Rationalize Sin

Many people rationalize sin because of its social normative context, and don’t even question their actions as being wrong. In fact the only thing that shows them it is wrong is the Bible. This can be seen in the words people say. For example, in society it is deemed OK to curse, in fact we hear teachers all the time say whatever without a pause. Society doesn’t restrict this freedom; only God does, because it reveals the heart behind the words.

True Faith Leads To Good Works

James 2:14 is all about people who “say” they have faith but but their lives prove they don’t. A true Christ follower abides in Christ (John 15:4-6) and produces the fruit by Him. True faith equals true works. So yes, biblically we are called to strive after perfection (Matthew 5:48), it is the desire of one who abides in Christ. Will we slip and mess up, yes (romans 7:15) but does that give us an excuse? Certainly not (Romans 6:1-2).  We see that we as Christians have every resource to learn,  develop and grow away from sin through that which is in the Scriptures (2 tim 3:16-17). We know we won’t be able to reach perfection here but this is no excuse to deny the command and strive after its divine calling for us (Philippians 3:12).

Priorities

Its all about priorities from here on out; living under human standards or being self disciplined. Allowing God to change us and adapting to his standards (Romans 12:1). This is the true nature of a christian, “For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” (Matthew 16:25). Thank God he gives us his Spirit to allow us to live this life, because we cannot do this on our own.

This entry was posted on March 12, 2010 at March 12, 2010 and is filed under Christian Living, Ethics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.