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What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?

James 2:14, ESV

Faith in self will not save you, nor will all the good works that you do. It can be easy to become caught up in the faith versus works debate, but the reality is this: your salvation is not dependent upon you, and no one can be saved eternally by you. This is all completed by Jesus Christ, and all the work of salvation was finished on the Cross. You are either dead in sin or alive in Christ. Faith in Christ brings action. This action is not something you create, but it is created in you by our Lord. Compassion is a gift of the Holy Spirit, and it draws us out of ourselves and into caring for our Lord’s creation. Faith in Christ is not self-created but given to us as we are chosen by our Lord as His own. Faith in self causes us to flee from Christ to seek refuge in our own comforts. Someone who believes that they are made righteous by their works is lost in self, and we are to pray for them even if they quote, “Faith without works is dead.” Faith in Christ can only bring life, and out of life will flow the compassionate works for our neighbor and a desire to proclaim Christ’s glory to the world. Faith in Christ is set in our bones and fills us with the fire of our Lord’s love that leads us out into the world with the message of our Lord’s peace.

Let us pray. I thank you, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, your dear Son, that you have kept me this night from all harm and danger, and I ask you to protect me this day also from sin and every evil, that in all I do today, I may please you. For into your hands, I commend myself, my body and soul, and all that is mine. Let your holy angel watch over me, that the wicked foe have no power over me. Amen.