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Sunday, December 12, 2010

Do Works Save Us?

I was driving along flipping channels when I came upon a Christian radio station. A minister was giving a spiritual thought in which he said, "Don't let works get in the way of your salvation. If you are performing works you are relying on your own strength to save you, rather than Jesus. So don't let works get in the way of your salvation."

This all too common sentiment illustrates a classic misunderstanding of the reason we have come to Earth. In fact, works don’t save us they change us. This is what our Christian brothers and sisters don’t understand about our faith. The works we perform are not meant to purchase eternity. They are meant change us into beings that can endure eternity.

Consider the parable of the widow’s mite. The Lord glorified the two farthings that the widow gave to the church because she gave all that she had. Yet, Jesus mocked the rich who technically performed the same work because they gave of their great abundance. In other words, it was no sacrifice for them. This parable is a perfect illustration of how the work itself is not glorified but rather the change it causes in us. A change that we only experience through the sacrifice of our will for his.

Imagine if the widow, rather than giving all she had to the church, would have simply “confessed Jesus” and went on her way expecting to be saved without giving or sacrificing.

We are the accumulation of the experiences we have in this life. We cannot be saved without works. Because it is not the works themselves, but the change those works cause in us that alters our prospects for salvation.

Alma 5:18-19
18. …can ye imagine yourselves brought before the tribunal of God with your souls filled with guilt and remorse, having a remembrance of all your guilt, yea, a perfect remembrance of all your wickedness, yea, a remembrance that ye have set at defiance the commandments of God?
19. I say unto you, can ye look up to God at that day with a pure heart and clean hands? I say unto you, can you look up, having the image of God engraven upon your countenances?