Grace Faith Works

Life is about balance. Day and night. Labor and rest. Seasons. Balance! But not necessarily in equal proportions. The darkness of night, which balances day, is a “lesser light.” Sometimes the balance is in moderation: food to sustain life, but not too much, lest the balance become gluttony. Chaos reigns in the absence of balance.

Religious extremes often lack the “salt-of-the-earth” quality spoken of by Christ. The light set on a hill, taken to an extreme, blazes with danger, or smolders with apathy. Grace to an extreme tolerates sin. Faith to an extreme morphs into an odd religious humanism, in which man is a god because he controls every circumstance by his faith in God. Works to an extreme create Pharisaic tendencies of self-righteousness, hypocrisy and a judgmental attitude.

Our quest for divine healing must be balanced with our natural mortality; Scripture records only Enoch and Elijah escaping death. Religious liberty must be balanced by God’s hatred of worldliness. Paul’s admonition to work out our salvation “with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12) must be understood in light of his words to Titus: “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us” (Titus 3:5).

The remedy for Christian extremism is a biblical understanding and application of grace, faith and works in daily living, acquired through diligent study of Scripture, a prayerful quest to please Christ, and submission to the biblical authority Christ places in our lives.