FAITH / BELIEF Faith or belief that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the living God is essential for one to be saved, forgiven, and cleansed of their sins.  The focus of Christ and His Church is on the sin issue that all created in the image of God wrestle with.  God through His grace has provided one  —  and only one — means of dealing with sin and that is through the sinless blood sacrifice that was made by Jesus Christ at the cross about 2,000 years ago.   “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we MUST be saved.” (Ac. 4:12).  The apostle, Peter,      certainly is blessed for he is the first to   confess this belief, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Mt. 16:16).  The eunuch acknowledged his belief and said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” (Ac. 8:37).  Faith or belief in the first century church was not some abstract mental assent.  That faith was real and had to be expressed.   God teaches those who would be saved because of their faith HOW to       express their saving faith.   Saving faith is expressed by doing what your Lord would have you to do.  It is not ever a matter of earning anything.  It is a matter of        obedience regarding how one will choose to express saving faith.   Faith in Jesus today is not expressed in obeying uninspired and imperfect churches, preachers, ministers,    evangelists, priests, or pastors.  Faith in   Jesus in every generation is expressed in learning about Jesus from the Holy Spirit inspired and preserved New Testament.  The faith once and for all time delivered (Jude 3) in the first century is the same faith that is to be found among believers in the twenty- first century.  This faith can be known and contended for.  Faith then and faith today is found among people who call Jesus their Lord and DO the things which He says (Lk. 6:45).  When people do this, they acknowledge Jesus alone as being their Lord.  Their Lord is not found in a church organization or some well-meaning individual.  Jesus sees this and knows with certainty that these do genuinely believe in Him and that they have not allowed something to come between their personal relationships with Christ as their Lord.   Faith today and always comes through the hearing of God’s perfect word  preserved and revealed to us (Ro. 10:17).  Those having a relationship with Jesus look to Him alone as the author and finisher of their faith (Heb. 12:2).  Consider how faith is defined in Hebrews 11:1,  ”Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  Faith does have some substance and some real hopes including the forgiveness of sins, everlasting life, and heaven itself.  Our faith is in Jesus whom we believe does provide and will provide all this and more for those who have a living faith in Him.  The miracles of Jesus give us the evidence we need to have faith in Him. Believers are justified by their faith and because of their faith have peace with God through their relationship with their Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:1).  God makes justification possible because of the significance of the event that took place as the cross.  God because of His grace does the hard part of the work.  The part we couldn’t do.  Believers can not earn justification or forgiveness of sins.  These are gifts and are available to all only through Jesus Christ.   What God requires of faithful believers can hardly be considered works.  However, there are many who want to minimize the expressions of faith that Jesus has called believers to express.  Expressions of faith in Christ include prayer, Bible study, attendance of the services of the church, the remembrance of the sacrifice of Christ, repentance, confession, baptism, etc.  All these things are done by faithful believers simply because God defines believers as those who do such things.  No faithful believer who does these things can ever by these deeds make God indebted to them.  Salvation for the faithful is available because of God’s grace and man’s faith response (Eph. 2:8-9).   Both God and the believer know his faith is for real  because of his fruits (Mt. 7:20). Consider now the examples of faith in James 2.  In verse 18 we observe that there are some who will try to say that faith and works are antagonistic to each other.  The point of this chapter is to make it clear to us that this is not true.  We know for a fact that Abraham and Rahab had faith because of their works.  If it had not been for their works, we would not know that they possessed any faith and   neither would God.   Works is how faith is expressed.  These works were not done to earn anything; they were the natural outpourings of their faith.  All the faithful must learn that there is a sense in which we are justified by works (Jas. 2:24).  The sense is that this is how one’s faith is seen as living and is real.  God’s faithful don’ t seek to run from opportunities to express the faith, but rather they look for opportunities to express their belief in Christ by doing His will.  Again let me make it clear that in  doing what we are told to do by our Lord and Savior does not mean we are earning anything.  The faithful must be humble before God and when we have done what is commanded we are to understand, “We are still unprofitable servants, and we have only done what was our duty to do.” (Lk. 17:10).  Are you living the faith that was delivered to the first-century church?  It is by your fruits or lack thereof that God knows whether your faith is a saving faith or not!