Faith always leads to a course of action

Faith, what you believe, always leads to a course of action, so much so that it’s hard to separate the faith or belief from the action when the action is the result of faith, which is what James said, that he will show us his faith by his works or actions (James 2:18). Meaning: You only know a person’s faith by their actions, not by their talk.

Like it would be hard to separate the belief that you can walk from, actually, walking. We do according to what we believe – perfectly.

Here’s some simple examples: You believe that it’s going to rain heavily today so you take an umbrella with you. You look before you cross the road bcos you believe there is a danger of being run over. You believe a storm, flood or fire is coming so you get away. You believe that a certain company is a good investment so you invest in it. You believe a certain car is the best so you buy it. You believe that it’s safe to fly with a certain airline so you go ahead and book your ticket.

You believe that Jesus is the Son of God so you pray to Him, love, trust and obey Him. You believe that God hates and punishes sin so you repent. You believe there is a heaven and a hell, and the course of your life testifies to that belief.

If you do a word search of repentance, repent, repented in the NT you will note that, from God’s perspective, the proof that people believe in Jesus is that they repent of their sins. God sends the Gospel and then He looks for repentance as the proof they believe. See: Luke 5:32, 10:13, 11:32, 15:7, 24:47, 2 Cor. 7:10, Matt. 9:13, Mark 2:17.

True conversion, true salvation from sin is a matter of God working repentance in us: both the faith and the response of repentance is all His grace. Therefore to “believe” and not repent is a rejection of His grace.

God has made man in such a way that everything he is hinges on what he believes. All a man consists of is what he believes. Unless of course he is a vegetable.