Believing in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour will save you from your sins. Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins, and if you believe in Him, you will be saved. Your sins will be forgiven and you will receive eternal life. This is the Word of God.
But the Bible also says that “So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless” (James 2:17, NLT). Faith in Jesus Christ is supposed to produce good deeds, another way of saying good deeds is good acts, or good actions. So, if you have faith in Jesus Christ you will do good things to other people. If you have faith in Jesus Christ you will serve God.
Doing good things for God means that we are living godly lives in every area of our lives. We show that we have faith in God by living a righteous and godly life. Let’s look at 2 people in the Bible who said they believed in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour but they were not acting like they did. These 2 people were married to each other and their names were Ananias and Sapphira.
He and his wife sold a piece of land and brought most of the money to the disciples as an offering and told them that this was all the money the got for selling the land. They lied. They kept some of the money for themselves. Peter asked them if it was the entire sum of money and they both said it was, and the Holy Spirit moved upon them both and they died because they had lied.
Faith in Jesus Christ requires that we live honest lives and that we do not lie to others, especially those who are in authority in the church of God.
Another person in the Bible who said he believed in God, but didn’t act like it, was a King by the name of Saul. Saul was a king who lived during the time of the Old Testament. God told Saul to attack a certain country, “Now go and completely destroy the entire Amalekite nation—men, women, children, babies, cattle, sheep, goats, camels, and donkeys” (1 Samuel 15:2-3, NLT). Notice that God told Saul to kill all the animals, not just some of them. Why all of them? I don’t know, but God said to do it, so Saul should have done it.
But, Saul did not do it. He did not kill all them. In fact he kept the best ones because he wanted to have a barbeque with his friends and the people of his army. So we read, “Then what is all the bleating of sheep and goats and the lowing of cattle I hear?” Samuel demanded”.
Because of Saul’s disobedience God said to Saul, ““I will not go back with you! Since you have rejected the Lord’s command, he has rejected you as king of Israel.” Faith without good works is useless. God demands that we obey Him in everything that He has asked us to do, if we do not obey Him, when we know what it is He is asking us to do, then there can be negative consequences for us.
On the flip side, if we do what God is asking us to do, then we are going to be blessed in this life and the in the life to come. Think about what happened to the people who were given money by their boss and told to invest it for him. Jesus told us the story about it. Most of the employees invested the money and made even more money for their boss. These employees were rewarded by their boss. They were given even more responsibility by him. But the one who did not invest what he had for the kingdom, had his life taken away from him.
Jesus wants us to serve Him and to obey Him and to live a godly life. He does not want us to lie to our friends, family, or to Him. Remember what happened to Ananias and Sapphira. They lied and their lives were taken away from them.
Jesus also does not want us to be afraid or lazy to serve. Look what happened to the servant who was too lazy to take the money that his boss gave to him to invest. His boss got very angry and fired him and sent him away empty handed.
These true stories are meant to teach us that it is important to do what it is God is asking us to do. It is important for us to trust in the Lord and seek His face and to keep living the godly way that God wants us to.
It is not easy to be a Christian. There are many battles that we have to face. We have to stay away from getting corrupted by the influences of the world. We have to reject and stay away from getting drunk, taking drugs, having sex outside of marriage, not stealing or committing fraud, not committing adultery and many other things. These temptations are around us all the times.
And, as a Somali Christian have the additional problem of persecution and rejection by your clan if you come out of the closet and tell others you are a Christian. If you are in country where it is illegal to be a Christian you have to be careful about how you act and what it is you say and who it is you say it to. It is a very difficult situation for you. Trusting in God is always a good thing. The Bible says, trust in the Lord and do not lean on your own understanding. God will guide you and will deliver you from your present danger and situation.
Those of us who believe in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour are looking forward to the day when our spirits will leave this earth and we will go and stand before God. We are looking forward to the day when God will say to us, “Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!”