Faith And Works — A LifeWords Devotion

Imagine a person who can’t swim floundering in a fast-flowing river. They can’t get themselves out of their dire predicament. Someone appears on the river bank and throws them a lifebelt. The drowning swimmer takes hold of it and is brought to safety.

This gives us some idea of how we are put right with God. We can’t put things right by our own efforts. We need help from outside. Help is offered, but we need to take hold of it for it to be effective. Once we do accept the offer of rescue, we are safe.

We are not saved by our faith. We are saved by God’s merciful offer to help us, which is what we call “grace”. Without such grace any sort of faith is irrelevant. Faith needs an object. And yet unless we exercise faith, the grace has no effect. For that lifebelt to help us, we need to recognise our need of it and grab hold of it.

And if we are to be true to the reality of salvation, perhaps we need to add a further picture. Once safe on shore, the rescued person is then called on by the rescuer to follow them and live a different sort of life. Faith without grace is meaningless. Faith without works is phony. Grace is primary, but faith and works all play a part in our salvation.