STATEMENT:
If we are saved by grace alone excluding works, I can sit here like a dummy for the rest of my life, and when I die, I'm in the hands of God our Creator. How absurd! What Bible are you reading?
ANSWER:
Your comment suggests childish thinking and ignorance of the knowledge of the written Word.
God’s will for you after you get saved is to come to a knowledge of the truth,
1Ti 2:4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
In addition, the scripture below tells us that it is our reasonable service to present ourselves to God for His purpose and through the written Word, to become increasingly transformed by the renewing of our mind, to know God’s good, acceptable, and perfect will.
Rom 12:1-2 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. (2) And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
Sure! You can sit back like a dummy and enjoy God’s free gift of justification in Christ,
Rom 5:1-2 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: (2) By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
Rom_5:15 But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.
… but if you want to press on to perfection in Christ and the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, one must abandon childish things, be willing to die to self, and consider all things loss for the excellency of knowing Christ.
Php 3:7-10 But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. (8) Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, (9) And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: (10) That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;
Php 3:12-15 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. (13) Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, (14) I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. (15) Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.
Salvation is MUCH MORE than just being saved from hell. God’s gift to you, after you believe in His Son, is justification, —but this is only the first step in salvation. After this, for the glory of God and for your share in the reward and inheritance of Christ, you need to grow up in Christ by getting into the written Word. There is a whole new dispensation of glory ahead. What share and portion of Christ’s glory you will get in the ages to come is based on how much of Christ is formed within you right now.
I trust this paints a different picture to your comment above.
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