In encouraging our faith and the works we do by Faith we are simply strengthening ourselves.
You have it backwards. Faith compels the works but works is not a road to salvation. If man had that kind of power then the sacrafice of Christ was for not, it has no meaning, it was done for nothing. There is nothing man can do to save himself other than have faith. That's it.
Galatians 2:15-16
15 "We who are Jews by birth and not 'Gentile sinners' 16 know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.
Well put. Me personally this is my take on works, and why I don't have a problem with people who view works as something being absolutely necessary. My view is that as long as the works are a reflection of whats in the heart, meaning a faith and love of Christ and His Father, than there's nothing wrong with "works." Where the WT dropped the ball, is how they go about "encouraging" works. The WT is notorious for changing the meaning of words. Encouraging in WT speak means a knife planted at your back under the threat of being marked, or losing your family, or not doing enough on behalf of Christ's brothers, the annointed. There's far too many JWs who go out in field service, attend meetings, attend conventions, not because they really want to, but because they're pressured into doing. Others are trained to do that as born-ins, similar to teaching and training a dog to take a poop on a newspaper in a certain section at the house. The dog doesn't take a dump there because he likes to, but because he was trained to.
After a while the JW realizes something is very wrong, but isn't savy to figure out exactly what it is as they're trying to see the forest from the trees. A good example of this is the average hours spent in the ministry across the nation. It typically swings around 9.5-10.5 hours monthly. People are capable of putting in more hours, but they don't want to for a host of different reasons including everything from apathetic territories, to contempt for The Friends due to excessive familiarity with the congregation their in. Not to mention they're exhausted from the daily demands of life while trying to balance out what the WT told them to do in the name of God and His Son. Most who go out in field service aren't doing it because they love Jehovah, or Jesus. No, its done because this is whats expected of them. The repurcussions of not doing so include being viewed poorly by others in their congregation, being marked, and estrangement from family and so called friends. Sometimes it becomes so ingrained that they even start to believe that they're doing it because they love God and Christ. Its really amazing how the WT has perfected this. I tip my hat to them.
...OUTLAW
