Episode 114: Faith and Works without Love

In the name of the glorious Trinity, Father and Son and Holy

Spirit, forever Amen. Glory be to the everlasting

mercies which sent you to us, O Christ, the light of the world

and the life of all. Give us wisdom by your law and

enlighten our impulses by Your knowledge.

Sanctify our souls by Your truth, and grant that we may be

obedient to Your words and may fulfil Your commandments at

every hour. O You who enlightens the

rational with the knowledge of Your greatness.

Do enlight, O my Lord, our thoughts, that we may meditate

upon Your holy and divine Scriptures at all times, O Lord

of all, Father and Son and Holy Spirit.

Forever. Amen.

Faith alone or? Faith by itself.

Without. Works is deed according to James

James 2:17

chapter 2, verse 17. However, according to James

James 2:19

chapter 2 verse 19, faith without.

Love and reverence. And deeds obviously is demonic

James. Chapter 2 Verse. 19 You believe.

James 2 · chapter mention

That means you have faith. That there is one God.

You do well, great, the Devils also believe.

And they tremble. You see, beloved, many believe

what God says. Many believe that God exists.

Many believe in Him, which should mean that they love Him

so much that they want to do what He tells them.

Now there are many evil people around who can manage the first

two of these, that is, believed that God exists and believe what

he says, and they are quite prepared to accept that He

exists. But it takes someone who is not

just a nominal Christian, that is Christian by name, but who is

one indeed, that means works and in living to love Revere God and

to do what he commands. That is the true Christian.

So just as faith with love is Christian, faith with love and

deeds is Christian. But faith without love is

demonic. SO2 Love without deeds is

demonic and fake as well. It's a beautiful triangle.

You want to call it a beautiful equation?

See Jesus in chapter 14 of John verse 15 commands If you love

me, keep my commandments, right? That means if you believe and

you love me, not merely believe in me.

I'm sorry if you love me and you respect me, not just merely

believe in me, but keep my commandments, St.

John Chrysostom writes. To love is to submit to Christ

at all times. It is works and actions that we

need, not mere show of words. It is easy.

He goes on to say it is easy for anyone to say or promise

something, but it is not so easy to act on that word or promise.

Let me ask you a question. How many times have you promised

something to God? I promise I will do this.

Lord, if you hear my prayer and and reply and grant them, I

promise I do this, I will do this, I will give you this.

How many times? Well, let me tell you, there is

one thing we promise and we recite every ferial morning

during morning prayers that is Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays,

Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

Now if there's not a commemoration of a St. or a

feast, it's just a ferial date and that's called a normal day

during the prayers. Look at what we sing.

Listen to this. And I posted this day by day, I

promise you so that tomorrow I will repent.

Hey, it's ringing bells, right? Yeah.

Oh, that's me. Day by day I promise that

tomorrow I will repent. My days have passed and gone,

and my trespasses and transgressions and sins remain.

O Christ, pity me. Pity, or have pity on me, or

pity me and have mercy upon me, Saint John Chrysostom continues.

If you love me, Christ said, keep my commandments.

I have commanded you to love one another and to do the one to one

another as I have done to you, he quotes.

To love me, he writes, is to obey these commandments.

He's speaking on Jesus's behalf. To love me is to obey these

commandments and to submit to me, your beloved, whatever that

you love, whatever that you desire, you and all your desires

must be submitted to Jesus Christ.

And that is true faith with deeds, which is an extension of

love, the one very God pleasing way or life.

To love and Revere God the Father is too.

Matthew 17 Five. Listen to his Son.

This is my beloved Son, in whom I am pleased.

Only the Son, Jesus Christ the Father is not pleased by any

other. For the salvation of souls and

the redemption of our sin from our sins.

No, no, but only through the blood of His Son.

Get it right. Get it right.

It doesn't concern me how many degrees of PhDs and master's

degrees you have. No, no, no, I don't.

It doesn't concern me how many how, how many theological papers

and books you've written. No, no, no.

Jesus said God said listen to him to his son.

Matthew 17, five John chapter 3, verse 35.

John 3:35

Look at what Jesus rightly claims, and no one has the right

to dare even think about what Jesus is claiming.

He whom the Father loves is talking about himself, whom the

Father loves and has given all things into his hands.

That's one way that we can please God and Revere God is to

listen to his Son. Now there's going to be an

equation. The one and only true way to

appease and receive God or Revere God the Father is by

listening to His Son and His Son.

Only. The one and only way by which we

can receive except believing God the Father, is to do the same to

the Son as we do to the Father in Matthew chapter 10 verse 40.

Matthew 10:40

Now I'm going to read the second-half of that verse.

He who receives me, He who accepts me.

Let me dare to add to that. He who believes in me, He who

reveres me, He who has a relationship with me has the

same with the Father. Matthew 1040 be the second part.

We're going to talk about the first part in the same way.

To express and exercise a true and genuine love for Christ,

beloved, is to obey his commandments.

Now you want to, you want to show and and express and and

show your love and your reverence to God.

Your worship to God is to obey Jesus Christ.

And the same way that we can Revere the Son, the Christ is to

obey his commandments. John chapter 14 verse 15.

John 14:15

Just as Jesus says, if you love me, fulfill my commandments.

Just as God the Father has commanded and demands love for

him and his Son, so too Christ prays be to His name, has

demanded and commands the same when it comes to a relationship

with Him. You want to have a relationship

with God. You have to be obedient to the

Son that He loved, in whom he was pleased.

You want to have a relationship with Christ, a healthy, a true,

genuine relationship with Christ.

He has demanded something. You know why he's demanded it?

Because He is God by nature. He has every authority to demand

just as the Father has demanded. Now in Matthew chapter 10 verse

Matthew 10:40

40, we read and we ascertained that to receive, to know, to see

and experience the Father, by the way, whom no one has seen.

So you know the Father has no one has seen except he who is

from God. He himself sees the Father.

John chapter 6 verse 46. Now to even see the Father, we

John 6:46

must have received, known and accepted and have an experience

with the Son. You want to see the Father, you

look at the Son. He is the bright glory, He is

the reflection, He is that God. Notice I didn't mention see when

it comes to Jesus Christ, right? Why?

Because no one has seen the Father.

But people saw Jesus, people saw the Son, and blessed are those

who did not see and yet believe. That's us, John chapter 20 verse

John 20:19

19. We see God, the unseeable, God,

the incomprehensible God, the unspeakable God we see and

comprehend and can speak of by looking at Jesus Christ.

Now you want to talk about God's power.

You want to have an experience you want to express.

You want to speak about the power of God when he proclaimed

that let there be light and it became light, light appeared.

You can't see that, but you see that power, that authority when

Jesus and when I say you see because of the eyewitness of the

people. So those who saw I saw and I

believe because they saw and I believe in God because Jesus saw

he is God. So I believe because they saw

the apostle saw those 500 that he appeared to at the same time

they at the one time. So you want to see the power of

God. You read the Scriptures where

Jesus commands Lazarus out of death and that is the I saw the

power of God. Now I know and I have an an

understanding very minute, very minute, but I have an

understanding of the power of God because I saw it in the

sacrament that Jesus worked when he raised Lazarus from the

death. And just the same way, beloved,

to receive, to have a true, unblemished understanding, a

real spirit, moved experience with Jesus Christ the Son is

first to love him, and then immediately after that is to

obey him and fulfill His commandments.

John 1415 To have our own experience with Jesus Christ, to

love him, and to fulfill His commandments.

Before we begin to receive Jesus Christ, we need to honor His

authority as God the Son. Before we begin our true

unblemished worship of Christ is to know of His authority to

honor His authority, to admit to His authority, to confess His

authority as God. If not, then your faith or your

understanding of the Lord Jesus Christ is flawed.

He wasn't just that mere human being.

He is God by nature. Praise be to His name.

John chapter 20. And here it is.

John 20 · chapter mention

Look at the authority, John chapter 20, verse 21.

John 20:21

After his comforting peace he gave to his disciples who were

in fear and confusion in the upper room.

He manifests His authority. He shows His authority and this

is the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ.

Praise and glory be to His name. We spoke about in last weeks

episode where Saint Paul preaches about the resurrected

Jesus Christ who did not see corruption.

So after His comforting peace in John 2021 to His disciples, He

manifests His authority by saying this.

Just as the Father has sent me, this is after also breathing on

them the Holy Spirit, not in the completeness they received on

the day of Pentecost, but He breathed on them the Holy

Spirit. And He said, just as the Father

has sent me, just as the Father has sent me not I have asked the

Father authority to so send you, I have asked the Father to send

you. I have asked the Father to allow

you to be sent. No, no, no, He quotes rightly.

So praise and glory be to his name.

He has authority as God Incarnate.

Just as the Father has sent me, I too sent you.

Just as the Father sent the Son, the Son sends his disciples

later who were called apostles. Just as the Father emphasized

the acceptance and obedience of His Son in order to enter a

relationship with Him, the Son too emphasizes the reception and

obeying of the disciples whom He sent by authority, whom He later

called apostles, as stated in Luke chapter 6, verse 13.

Luke 6:13

In Matthew chapter 10, verse 40, prior to the requisition of

Matthew 10:40

receiving the Father through the Son, Jesus sets the

prerequisites of receiving Him, accepting Him, loving Him,

obeying Him through the apostles.

That is their teaching and their instructions.

He who receives you. Matthew 1040A first part.

He who receives you receives me. Now he who doesn't receive them,

remember what happened to those who laughed at the messengers of

the Lord God, and they scorned their words and they laughed at

His prophets. In the book of the second book

of Chronicles, chapter 36, verse 16, it is said that the anger of

the Lord God arose among His people until there was no

healing for them. Wow, wow.

Let's go back to our original statement.

Faith without deeds, standing from love is demonic according

to James chapter 2 verse 17. You see, just as you cannot say

James 2:17

I believe, I believe in and I love God and reject His Son, so

too you cannot claim to believe and love Christ if you reject

His messengers, his apostles. You see, the faith Jesus

preached and called all 2 was gifted as a depository.

That faith, that true relationship that Jesus

presented to mankind was gifted as a depository to his

disciples, his apostles. And in turn, that deposit was

then deposited or that depository was deposited in the

Church along with many other graces of the Holy Spirit.

So let me ask you a question. You love the Father.

Do you love God the Father? If so, do you love?

And are you obeying his Son? If so, are you obeying and

adhering to the apostles? Apostles of the Son?

If so, are you active and a participant in the Church

established upon the foundation of the apostles?

Thessalonians, beloved if one expression is removed and

disregarded from an equation, it makes the equation unequal.

If 2 + 2 = 4, but you say 2 plus blank equals blank, nothing

there, that equation is going to be unequal.

But if you say 2 + X = 4, yeah, you've placed an expression in

that equation. It's still a full expression. 2

+ X = 4, well, you know it's two, but take away it's just a

blank space there. That equation is going to be

unequal. If a link is removed and

disregarded from a chain, the chain is flawed.

The chain is not complete if the cornerstone in the center of an

arch is removed and disregarded, the two sides of the arch will

collapse. So too if an element is removed

from the formula. Lack of a better term or the

equation set by Christ in Matthew chapter 10 verse 14.

Matthew 10:14

If it's removed, disregarded, then it's flawed.

Then flawed is our relationship. If you say just the Son and the

Father, what about the Holy Spirit?

If you say the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, well

what about the equation in Matthew chapter 10 verse 40?

Matthew 10:40

If you say the Holy Spirit and only the the Son, what about the

Father? If you say the Father and the

Son only, what about the apostles?

He who receives you, He's telling the apostles, the

disciples and the apostles. He who receives you receives me.

He who receives me receives the Father.

There is a beautiful equation there, beloved.

So we believe if we believe in that, we read that verse and we

believe in the commands of Jesus Christ who commanded us, that if

we love Him, we must fulfill his commandments, all his teaching,

all His precepts. If we do well, then we can't

choose and pick. We have to commit to submit to

and live according to the equation that Jesus has given

us. Again, if an element is removed

from the formula or equation set by Christ in Matthew chapter 10

Matthew 10:40

verse 40, if it is removed or disregarded, then flawed is our

relationship with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Praise and glory be to His name. Amen.

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double edged sword. Until next time, God bless you

all.