Don't the above verses bring gladness to your heart? To think we have lost all of these wonderful passages because of the perversion of Paul's teaching of the grace of God!

"Oh," we say, "now we have Christ's righteousness. We do not need to walk uprightly. We do not need to work righteousness. We do not need to speak the truth in our heart. Christ did it all for us."

Doesn't your common sense, let alone the New Testament, tell you that something is wrong here? Would you trust Paul or John or Peter or James if you knew they actually were dishonorable men who practiced unrighteousness and spoke lies in their heart, and then claimed to be saved by "grace"? Would you? If you knew Paul fornicated in every town he visited would you accept his writings as Scripture? Would you say there was no problem because he was "saved by grace"?

Haven't we in the United States disowned two prominent television evangelists because they were caught in immorality? Why should we condemn them if God saw them through Christ as holy men of God?

The Christian churches have condemned the two men, denouncing them as immoral. The American public at large laughs at the scandals in the churches because they have lost faith in the Christian Gospel. Why have they lost faith? Because of our behavior.

The Lord Jesus said that it is our good works that will cause men to glorify God. No good works, no glory to God. As simple as that.

"But," we protest, "Jesus did it all for us."

Some believers mean by this that there is no need for us to keep God's commandments because we are saved by an abstract grace unrelated to our behavior.

Other believers mean by this that if we just go about our business Christ in us will automatically bring forth all the righteous behavior we need.

Neither position is Scriptural. If we do not keep Christ's commandments we do not love Him. We are in deception. A mental set of beliefs never saved anyone. Faith apart from works is dead.

Also, it is not true that if we go about our business Christ automatically will cause us to keep His commandments. The new covenant does not work that way. The new covenant is a daily fight of faith in which we have to beat down our body, just as Paul said. We have to pray, read the Bible, gather with fervent Christians, cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

You may say these are works. They indeed are. They are Bible works and if we do not practice them we will not bear the fruit of righteousness for which God is looking. If we do not bear the fruit of righteousness we will be cut out of Christ. This is what the Bible teaches.

Lately, the False Prophet, the spirit of religious delusion, has convinced Christians that Christ desires they be wealthy in this world, that through faith in Him they can acquire much money and material success.

The faith-prosperity gospel does not even resemble the Gospel of the Kingdom of God as preached by John the Baptist, the Lord Jesus, or the Apostle Paul.

To be continued.