“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
We are saved from our sins by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. For this we give thanks! Indeed, our hearts should overflow with gratitude at this wonderful news that we don’t need to earn our salvation by good works. This is profoundly good news, because we could never possibly earn fellowship with the perfect and holy God of the universe by good works since He is perfect and we aren’t!
HOWEVER…any faith in Christ that is sufficient to save us will reveal itself by the fruit of a changed and changing heart. It will become clear to us by new and holy desires (for worship, for the Word, for the church) and new love for God and His people. Saving faith will also be revealed by good works – acts of love and charity toward those in need. Though we’ll never be perfect, if we’ve truly embraced Jesus Christ as Lord of our life, then we’ll begin to invest our time, energy, and financial resources in doing the work of God’s Kingdom.
Jesus was abundantly clear that the visible fruit of our lives reveals our inner spiritual condition. If the fruit is good and we’re doing good works in increasing number, then we can be confident in our faith. If our fruit is bad and there’s little evidence of a renewed heart, we should reflect and pray about our faith, asking God to help us understand this disconnect.
We aren’t meant to live in great uncertainty about our salvation. Nonetheless, Scripture is clear that there are certain marks of saving faith in our life that if we aren’t seeing, we should return to the cross and make sure we’ve truly given our heart to King Jesus.