{"id":388,"date":"2011-09-29T16:35:35","date_gmt":"2011-09-29T21:35:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.practicalgrace.org\/daily\/?p=388"},"modified":"2011-09-29T16:35:35","modified_gmt":"2011-09-29T21:35:35","slug":"the-critical-contrast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.practicalgrace.org\/?p=388","title":{"rendered":"The critical contrast"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continuing to walk through James, a wonderful book which gloriously reveals the depth of the gospel as it works into our lives. Living for Christ is so much more than a moral checklist or cultural conformity. Our faith in Christ will produce much – but the incredible thing about gospel-based progressive sanctification is that we bear more fruit as we more fully understand our relationship with God – especially that it is based on Christ’s performance for us, not our performance for him.<\/p>\n

So even beyond\u00a0the wondrous truth that\u00a0“faith works,” James reveals how it works. And even more critically, James reveals the\u00a0contrast of this\u00a0fruit-producing faith with\u00a0the world’s view of religion.\u00a0There’s a variety of ways that pastors say this… here are a few phrases that draw out the contrast of works grounded in unbelieving religion… or gospel faith:<\/p>\n

Our works drive God’s love for us… or God’s love drives our works.
\nOur good works direct God’s favor… or our good works reflect God’s favor.
\nOur actions are the root of God’s favor… or our actions are the fruit of God’s favor.
\nObey so God will be happy… or obey because God is happy with you.
\nOur obedience motivates God’s infinite happiness… or God’s infinite happiness motivates our obedience.
\nI am obligate so that God will love me… or I’m free to live this way because God loves me.
\nI obey therefore I’m accepted… or I’m accepted therefore I obey.
\nIf I behave, then I belong… or I belong, that’s why I behave.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

O the glories of what our Savior has done! May our hearts be more and more grounded in the gospel, that we might more and more see the reality of who we are in Him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continuing to walk through James, a wonderful book which gloriously reveals the depth of the gospel as it works into our lives. Living for Christ is so much more than a moral checklist or cultural conformity. Our faith in Christ will produce much – but the incredible thing about gospel-based progressive sanctification is that we … Continue reading The critical contrast<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[103],"class_list":["post-388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-christ","tag-faith-works"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.practicalgrace.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.practicalgrace.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.practicalgrace.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.practicalgrace.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.practicalgrace.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.practicalgrace.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.practicalgrace.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.practicalgrace.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.practicalgrace.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}