Originally posted by @chaney3
Yes, it does seem that God is looking for some kind of faith and belief in HIM....AND good works.
They work in tandem.
God wants us to abide in Him, and He in us. Jesus again didn't say He was a way to God,
and He did not say He was going to tell us how to get to God, He said, He is the way to
God. We will do good works when we encounter God, reason being God is good and He
wants us to be like Him. He takes no delight in anyone losing out and dying in their sins,
no joy in the destruction of the wicked, He is Love.
He is also Holy and Just, so He has to charge those to do evil with the crimes they do,
justice demands that, so does His goodness. He saw that we were dead in our sins, we
could do nothing to fix that on our own, yet He loved us. It isn't that we loved Him, it is
that He first loved us, that the Father sent Jesus into the world to save sinners! Save
sinners, not reward the righteous, save sinners, so Jesus who knew no sin became sin
so that we could be saved! In this it is important to see we still have to rely on God not our
efforts, if were get saved then we have to live a sinless life on our own we would not last
a day, we would sin and that would be the end of it.
In Christ, walking in the Spirit that God wants to give us, we can be free of all of that! As
we walk out our lives following God abiding in Him we will not sin as we follow His Spirit,
but if we do anything sinful repenting of it we can go to God for grace. This is not a sin for
free card, if anyone's intent is to live in sin while excepting God to over look the sin that
they don't want to give up will find out that God is not mocked. If He starts a good work in
us He will complete it, we just need to obey Him, confess, repent. Our righteousness will
always depend on Him, so in no way do we want to mock Him, unlike everyone who can
kill our bodies, God can not only do that but cast us into Hell too.
The greatest take away from this isn't that we are striving to prove to God we belong to
Him, He knows where are hearts are, it is our trusting that He wants us and has done all
that is required for us to be able to abide in Christ and Christ in us. So as He calls us we
answer Him, then His joy is our strength.