- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
Amen Sister! Wow — what a lot of activity on this thread over the last day. I comment early, head to work and some other high school activities last evening and notice there’s a lot of commentary here. This is good stuff too. I hope I can reach a point where I can deal with the history issues better and it is insightful to see the view of others. I do need to comment to your question about earning salvation through works and not faith. It is an excellent one. I do think that works are important and essential to our spiritual growth. But I think our attitude toward them and what we feel in our hearts as we fulfill them is a defining characteristic of how much good the works are doing for us. Maybe an example will help.
As a TBM, the list would come around to sign up to fulfill welfare assignments. In my mind I would find myself saying “It’s about my turn to help out. I guess I better sign this sheet get off work and go”. Earlier this year, a sign up sheet came around for a welfare assignment that we learned of only two days before it was to happen. The man who announced it was obviously worried — a very kind older retired man I’ll call ‘Karl’. This time I thought “Wow, Karl is stressing out about this – I hope he’s okay. I ought to sign up to help him out. Besides, it’s a good chance to help some people in need.”.
So works are more a manifestation of living a Christlike like and they certainly don’t have to revolve around doing everything the church is saying MUST be done. It is virtually impossible to do that and live a perfect life. This is why the grace component is needed, but we in the church as a group don’t completely understand this. No matter how much we do, the Savior still has to fill in the gap. The challenge is determining for yourself what is good enough in the “works” area without feeling guilt.
I’m kind of getting from some of your earlier comments that what other people think plays a role in what you feel you have to do. I believe it will help you if you can worry less about that and determine by yourself what you can do while keeping your sanity. Go slowly — you have plenty of time to figure it out. And remember that God wants us to be happy — that’s impossible if you are stressing too much about what you are not doing.
Hang in there!
I’ve taught history. It’s messy. None of us understand it well, and lots of people misunderstand it badly. That pretty much suffices for me.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.