“We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone.” ― Martin Luther

Christianity isn't so much a checklist, as it is a relationship. We are saved by grace, and not by any deed or work that we do. We cannot make ourselves right with God. This is one of the things that separates Christianity from other religions. We have a God who is not indifferent or unable to act, but has come and saved us. So that may make us wonder what the purpose of loving our neighbor and avoiding sin is for? If my actions do not save me, it would seem to reason that they cannot “unsave” me either. Simply put, that is true. Our works show who we belong to though. Jesus says that we must be born again, and that when we come to Him, we are made known. Thus, our works show if we have been made known in Christ. If you wanted to know if something was an apple tree, one of the simplest tests would be to see if it has apples on it in fruit season. If it is growing oranges, we could likely safely conclude that the tree is not in fact an apple tree. When we try to make ourselves right with God and do our own good deeds, it is like taping apples onto an orange tree. For a while we may appear just like a genuine Christian saved by grace, or at least until the rot sets in. If we carry the apple analogy further and say that we are like an apple tree after we have been saved, we will start growing apples and not whatever type of fruit we grew before. These “apples” do not save us, but they show we have been saved. These apples may not always appear beautiful. Some may fall off the tree too soon or even have worms. Yet if it is an apple tree, it will grow apples.

In addition to calling Jesus, our savior, we call Him our Lord. We can think of Jesus as being the boss at our job. Perhaps you are or have been a bagger at a grocery story. If a grocery store manager hires you, you have agreed to listen and obey her. If she says to bag groceries, that is what you do. Likewise, Jesus as our Lord has given us commands to obey. As we have made Him our Lord, we listen to Him. If we never listen to Him, it is a good sign that He is not our Lord and that we do not know Him. Likewise, we cannot pretend to act like His employees and secretly become one. We have to go to Him and be made His. We cannot get salvation on our own. Returning to the grocery store analogy, if I am bagging groceries it shows that the store knows me and I have been hired by it. If I randomly walk in and try to start bagging groceries, I do not suddenly become an employee, and because the store does not know me, I likely will have the cops called on me. I have to first become an employee of the store before any of my work will matter to the store’s owner.

"Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter." – Francis Chan