Why Not by Our Good Works?

"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God". (Ephesians 2:8)
As we so often ponder or try to establish which part of our spiritual lives is of most importance to God, it is evident in the book of Ephesians that our relationship with God is our primary mission rather than our works. When the Devil attacks us he attacks in a way that will destroy our relationship with God rather than our works. Though we build up our own possessions we have these merely as physical comforts in while we are living and eventually they perish and go away so spiritually they are of no value to us as stated in (Matthew 6:19-24). The word perversion means to infect or to contaminate. We often as Christians fall prey to many perversions of the gospel due to the fact of our relationships being contaminated by false beliefs of doctrines that our works can somehow get us into Heaven and to believe in such a doctrine is a perverse method of interpreting the gospel of Christ. Once again we have to look at the method in which we received Christ as our Savior this brings us back to (Eph 2:8) where we had not been saved by any work we had done to this point. If anything is to be evident here we were already dead by works which would be interpreted as (sin) and saved by grace.

To understand this better we must look at (Ephesians 2:1-6). Here is evidence that we were bound by sin and already dead without Christ. The Apostle Paul could not have made it clearer to everyone through these scriptures that by grace and grace only we are saved. Paul knew this first hand as we read of his conversion of one who went from persecutor to believer on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:3) Many perverse doctrines would have us believe that good works are essential to entering the Kingdom of Heaven but Christ made this very clear to all of us when He spoke to those who He knew to be boasters of their works on His journey to Jerusalem in the Gospel of Luke "When once the Master of the house has risen up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock at the door saying," Lord, Lord open for us," and He will answer and say to you, "I do not know you, where you are from." Vs 26: then you will begin to say, "We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets." Vs 27: But He will say, "I tell you I do not know you, where you are from. Depart from Me, all you workers of iniquity. (Luke 13:25-27).

With what we have seen throughout the Old and New Testament it is clear that all those who were pleasing in the presence of God all had one common denominator, they had established a relationship with God through faith and believing and the works that they had done were already put into place by the Heavenly Father (Eph 2:10) to build the faith of others rather than in today's Christian world where we find those who have become perverse in doctrine by boasting themselves and their works above the grace of God. "Not of works, lest anyone should boast" (Ephesians 2:9).

Ref: New King James Version Bible, eBible.com

ICR.org

Thompson Chain Reference Bible 1982 edition