The disciples asked Jesus (cf. John 6:28-29) what work we must do to inherit eternal life and Jesus said, "This is the work of God that you believe in his Son." What we're saying here is that Jesus meant that there's nothing we can do to earn salvation, there's no work that guarantees salvation or brings it about in other words. We must receive salvation, not achieve salvation. What happens is that God works faith in our hearts and it causes us to believe and to become born again and belief is the sign that we belong to God. It is not something we do to get saved, rather we are saved because we believe, in other words, you might say God ordains us to believe. We are not ordained because we believe there's a big difference we are not saved by works we are ordained to believe.
If you call faith of work, you're saying also that we're saved by works and works include merit and that would be merit-based salvation. In other words, works and grace are antithetical. They cannot be in the same reality effectuating the same conclusion. God opens your heart to believe and he knows where we are spiritually and can do that because he made our hearts, he understands our hearts. God looks at the motives that's why you cannot tell us a certain prayer that is effectual for all salvation. Our hearts seek God because God sees a heart, not just the words it one says. There's no preset or prefabricated prayer for salvation that one could say guarantees salvation. And it's also no work that we can do that guarantees salvation.
The work of God as Jesus said is to believe in Jesus but this is not our work it is God's work he has recognized that God's works are faith in us. We do not conjure up faith on our own it is a gift of God and his work. We are not judged by our faith because I'll be judging by something God gave us, we are judged by what we do with the faith that God gave us, in other words, the fruit that we bear in God's name or the works that we accomplished through the Spirit in his name some people have great faith and they do no works as a follow-up. They do not follow through with their faith. Unbelievers are judged by their deeds whether good or evil.
There's a difference between confessional faith and functional faith and what we do with it You must turn our faith into deeds or our creed into deeds and make it real a living faith that grows in relationship to relationship. They're not stagnant when a person has faith in God. Faith goes from faith to faith and from glory to glory from grace to grace. He gives more grace as our faith becomes strong and we grow in Christ and mature in Christ.
We must recognize that God desires to work faith in everybody but some people are resistant some people are blind and some people are hardened. In fact, all this was before we were saved. If God did not decide to work salvation and faith in some people, all of us would be lost. God has to call us to salvation and open our hearts and everyone that God calls gets saved. This is called the inward call of God and brings people to salvation but preaching the gospel is the outward call of God and goes to everyone not just the elect. God's working with us is a regeneration and a sanctification and a justification, glorification, things God works in us we do not work on our own. Soli Deo Gloria!
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