By Rod Nichols

I grew up in a church where I always got the impression that good works got you to heaven. In my mind I could see a big scale in heaven and God would put my good works on one side and all the bad things on the other and if the good side outweighed the bad, I was in. Of course, I now know that isn’t true and in fact our good works have nothing to do with us getting into heaven. There is only one way to the Father in heaven and that’s Jesus (John 14:6). Romans 10:9 confirms this, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

As I moved through my walk with the Lord, I kept hearing about faith. We are saved by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9), we can’t please God without faith (Hebrews 11:6), and the righteous shall live by faith (Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11, Hebrews 10:38).

As I gained a solid understanding of faith, I started hearing that faith without works is dead (James 2:14-26) and this didn’t make sense (I was still transforming my carnal mind) to me. If we were saved by faith, not by works, then how could my faith be dead, if I didn’t do any good works? This took a while for me to embrace and since either you are struggling or have struggled with this same thing or perhaps you will encounter someone who is, I want to take some time, in this blog post to study James 2:14-26:

“What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone? 15 Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, 16 and you say, “Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well”—but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do?
17 So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.
18 Now someone may argue, “Some people have faith; others have good deeds.” But I say, “How can you show me your faith if you don’t have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds.” 19 You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror. 20 How foolish! Can’t you see that faith without good deeds is useless? 21 Don’t you remember that our ancestor Abraham was shown to be right with God by his actions when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see, his faith and his actions worked together. His actions made his faith complete. 23 And so it happened just as the Scriptures say: “Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.” He was even called the friend of God. 24 So you see, we are shown to be right with God by what we do, not by faith alone. 25 Rahab the prostitute is another example. She was shown to be right with God by her actions when she hid those messengers and sent them safely away by a different road. 26 Just as the body is dead without breath, so also faith is dead without good works.”

The first thing I began understanding was that there is a difference between belief and faith. You can believe that a chair will hold your weight, if you sit in it, but it’s not faith until you test your belief by actually sitting in the chair. Faith takes belief and moves it into action.

In my life, after I believed in Jesus as my Savior and started making Him Lord over the various parts of my life, I noticed that things started to change. First, I didn’t swear anymore. Now, I was never very foul mouthed, but there were times, particularly if I was angry, where some choice words would fly out of my mouth. However, my belief began to move into faith through the action of not swearing. I also started controlled my anger, another example of belief to faith. Eventually, this expanded, as I moved from believing that Jesus could heal people to praying for people to be healed (and seeing it happen).

What James is saying is that if your faith is real, it will result in actions or good works. It’s easy to say that you have faith in healing and a lot harder to walk up to a person who clearly needs healing and pray for them (or even pray for yourself). Faith without works is really just belief and James calls that dead faith.

James uses Abraham as an example of faith and works. God counted Abraham righteous because of his faith, but then his faith was made complete by his actions – God told Abraham to leave his home and family and he did, God told him to take his son Isaac to the mountain and sacrifice him and Abraham obeyed. Fortunately, Abraham didn’t have to go through with the sacrifice.

If you have true faith in Jesus, then you will do the things that Jesus did and even greater (John 14:12). Otherwise, you are walking around with dead faith. It doesn’t mean that you won’t go to heaven when you die, but it does mean that you aren’t fulfilling your God-given purpose here on earth. Jesus said to go and preach the gospel and make disciples. Are you doing that? Is your faith alive or dead?

The End of Me
By Rod Nichols

It seems that the thing to do is to tell people, especially children, that they can do or be anything they dream, if they will just go after it and not quit. While there may be some truth in that, my experience hasn’t been exactly like that. Along the path of life there is one thing I repeatedly run into… THE END OF ME. That’s right, I get to the end of what my abilities, intelligence, motivation and perseverance can do. Somehow, I think I’m not the only one.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating quitting. What I have discovered is that there is a God who loves me and is for me and He has no end or beginning for that matter. Not only that, but He seems to be pleased when I discover that I need Him and humble myself to admit that. I never cease to be amazed at the pleasure my Father in heaven has when He does life WITH me. It’s funny; I’ve discovered that I love that too.

When I find the end of me, I also discover that my Father God is just getting started. I think I’ll just hang with Him!

Here at AZV we embrace as one of our Permeating Values the biblical mandate to make disciples of all nations. We choose, however, to express this a bit different when we say, “Owning the Mission”.

This means that we take the command of Christ personally. It is a command to the Church, to OUR CHURCH AT AZV! It’s a command from the LORD TO ME!

Church as a meeting we attend when we want is really shallow, really not what the scriptures tell us that Church is. Christ has not called us to be saved church attenders. He called us to be His Ambassadors to a lost and dying world.

I think changing our nation, whichever nation you reside in, will ONLY happen when God’s people, the church, take this command of Christ personally. That means we whole-heartedly serve Jesus Christ, knowing that we change and grow in Him progressively. We are devoted to the people He has placed us with in whatever congregation He wants, knowing they are also imperfect and we will need to work out problems with them.

If we will choose to truly make Christ and His Kingdom our life and step forward to love and serve others, both in the congregation and in the world around us, that is how we change our nation. One soul, one precious person at a time. Loving them, sharing with them, inviting them closer to the One True God that loves them so very much!

"As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he" is something that is taught quite often in the church and it is always quoted as Proverbs 23:7. This was a scripture I heard regularly, in the self-help industry, before I was saved. I was a motivational speaker and owned a store that sold and rented motivational tape sets and books.

One of those books was As a Man Thinketh by James Allen. I also had a set of tapes by Earl Nightingale titled The Strangest Secret. Both were based on Proverbs 23:7.

The funny thing is that "as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he" is not actually in the Bible. The closest to that is the King James Version:

“For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he…”

Those who use Proverbs 23:7 to teach are typically saying that whatever you think about is what you become. Your dominant thought will become your dominant action. Well, that is totally out of context with what the scripture is actually teaching. To start with we need to read the whole verse 7. Here is how it actually reads in the KJV:

“For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee.”

In the NIV, Proverbs 23:7 reads:

“for he is the kind of person who is always thinking about the cost. “Eat and drink,” he says to you, but his heart is not with you.”

The NASB says it this way:

“For as he thinks within himself, so he is. He says to you, “Eat and drink!” But his heart is not with you.”

As we are to do, let’s study this in context with the scripture around 23:7. The context first is advice about dining with a ruler or king (verses 1-3). Next, not to overwork to be rich and be careful of riches (verses 4-5). Verse 6 says, “Do not eat the bread of a miser, nor desire his delicacies;” verse 7 “For as he (the miser) thinks in his heart, so is he. Eat and drink he (the miser) says to you, but his heart is not with you.”

Wow, Proverbs 23:7 takes on a whole new meaning. The scripture, is totally out of context and doesn’t match up with how it is typically taught. That said, the concept is correct. We do move toward our dominant thought. Our actions follow our thoughts, whether good or bad. That’s why in the last part of 2 Corinthians 10:5, the Apostle Paul teaches:

“take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

We need to think about what we are thinking about and compare it to the Word of God. If the thought lines up, keep it and if it doesn’t, reject it. It’s also why Paul makes it clear what we are supposed to be thinking about in Philippians 4:8:

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

And in Colossians 3:2:

“Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”

If we get our thoughts on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, then our actions will also be in alignment with heaven and the will of God. As a man thinks, so is he. As a woman thinks, so is she. The statement might not be in the Bible in that context, but it’s accurate anyway. Get your thoughts on Jesus and His Word and things will go much better in your life.