The Right Religion Demonstrates True Faith In Jesus Christ

by pronomono 14 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  pronomono

  The week of December 9th, I have the talk "The Right Religion Demonstrates True Faith In Jesus Christ" base on the Reasoning book rs p329. The following is the suggested material.

  Is true faith in Jesus Christ being demonstrated? This involves appreciation of the value of the sacrifice of Jesus’ human life and of his position today as heavenly King. (John 3:36; Ps. 2:6-8) Such appreciation is shown by obeying Jesus—sharing personally and zealously in the work that he assigned to his followers. True religion has such faith that is accompanied by works.—Jas. 2:26.

  So, how should this talk really be given.....seriously....as a subtle means to help the brothers and sisters?
• 

  unstopableravens

  well help them to see that jws do not fit the bill, help to to see obeying christ cab only be done by meabs of the new birth john 3:1-8
• 

  caliber

  True faith is evidenced by a change in the way we act towards others
  
  True faith, dependence/reliance/trust, in God reveals itself in our actions, our thought life, and our priorities.

  We will love God with all our hearts and we will love others as we love ourselves ( (Matt. 22:37-39).

  Almost everyone believes that faith involves feelings. But physical feelings merely come from the human senses and have nothing whatsoever to do

  with what God promises—or faith!

  Human beings accept knowledge that they have received through the five senses—seeing, hearing, smelling, touching and tasting. These senses all

  involve physical information—physical knowledge. The mind receives and processes this information in order to draw conclusions about

  circumstances, things and events taking place around it. Faith is spiritual, not physical. It is a confident assurance, which comes from the Spirit of God in the mind of a converted human being.

  While ‘faith’ surely includes the element of ‘belief’, they are not one and the same. Certainly one must believe that something, or someone, exists

  before it is possible to put one’s faith in that person or thing.“Belief” can be simply a passive mental acceptance which amounts to nothing when it

  comes to how it affects our life. Simply to say “I believe in God” means very little if it is merely coming from the lips and not from the heart

  To put one’s ‘faith’ in something, or someone, means that one is putting his or her trust in that person or thing.

  Faith is built on love and trust
• 

  eyeuse2badub

  you could point out in your talk by way of question:

  Can you imagine Jesus and the disciples talking a coffe break after just an hour in service? Or can you imagine Jesus and 3 to 4 other disciples traveling together to a distant location to make one return visit and have the 3 to 4 disciples just waiting on the 1 or 2 actually making the return visit while the 3 or 4 just visit while waiting----and of course counting their time? Or could you imagine Jesus directing the disciples to conduct a Bible study with the children of another Christians' family------so he could count his time?

  eyeuse2badub
• 

  Crazyguy

  I would also try to make some points that "works" that James talked about ,many bible scolars including Russel thought works equalled the fruitages of the spirit and not actual working in sevitude.
• 

  leaving_quietly

  Oh, boy... a talk about faith and works.

  You could ask: What did James mean? Did he mean the preaching? Certainly that is important as Christ himself said the good news of the kingdom would be preached in all the earth. However, a closer look at James' letter shows that he was not referring to preaching at all. In fact, preaching is not even mentioned in his letter. In the preceding verse, it mentioned the works of Rahab the harlot. Was she preaching? No. What then were her works? She received the messengers hospitably and then sent them another way. She showed love for them and faith in God. Today, what are our works? Paul talked about two types of works: works of the flesh and works (or fruitage) of the spirit. One cannot have truly have faith without the fruitage of the spirit. True, we can preach and preach and preach, but it is of no benefit if we do not have the number one "work" of the spririt, which is love. Note 1 Cor 13:1-3. How, then, do we demonstrate true faith in the Christ? Note 1 John 3:21-23. Here, it shows that we obey Christs' commandments, which are listed for us here, specificially to have faith in the name of the son of God, and to be loving one another. In fact, we are given three commandments by the Christ. Matt 22:35-39, and John 13:34 lists these. Let's read them. Yes, dear friends, the we (don't say "the right religion" because this is really something done personally) demonstrates true faith in in Jesus Christ by (1) loving God with all our heart, soul and mind, (2) love our neighbors as we would ourselves and (3) love one another. By obeying these commandments, we demonstrate TRUE faith in Christ.
• 

  Island Man

  You can also mention the matter of true faith in Jesus being reflected in our speech. You can quote Jesus' words about out of the heart's abundance the mouth speaks. Then you can ask rhetorical questions like:

  "Ask yourself: Does my everyday speech reveal that I'm someone who truly exercises faith in Jesus? The writers of the NT regularly referred to Jesus with such titles as "Savior" and "Lord". Can I recall the last conversation when I referred to Jesus as being my Lord or my Savior? We regularly speak of Jehovah's organization and what Jehovah is accomplishing and teaching us by means of his organization. But we must remember that Jesus is the head of the congregation and the Father's belongings are also Jesus' belongings. When last have I used the term "Jesus' organization" or spoken of the things that Jesus is doing and teaching by means of the organization? Does our speech reveal that Jesus is not on our hearts at all? Let us give no one cause for thinking that we do not believe in Jesus"
• 

  pronomono

  Wow. This is good information. For me, I was always trained that faith in Jah/Jesus involved the preaching work over most other things. Since I preach very little (in field service, at least), I don't want to be hypocritical by recommending this as what faith in Jesus involves, epecially when I know it to be wrong. I'll definitely be using your suggestions in my talk. Thank you everyone.

  It's hard trying to reprogram your mind after being a JW for so long.
• 

  Laika

  The problem with the idea of 'true' faith (being demonstrated by works) is it raises the question: Have I got that 'true' faith?

  I like eyeuse2beadub's suggestion, talk up the moralism. 'Someone with true faith doesn't rush home after their hour is up, they don't walk slowly between the doors or take long coffee breaks. Someone with true faith doesn't do this, or that, etc...'

  They will feel bad because they can't argue with you, it's what the Society teaches after all, yet they also know they don't do it, and so they don't have 'true' faith, and so maybe they'll give up, and it's only when you give up that you find out you never had to try in the first place.
• 

  pronomono

  Thanks everyone. My talk went great. I was really nervous knowing that I wasn't giving the talk they expected to hear about faith being tied to works of preaching. I was really ready to just tell them I'm not giving the talk because I couldn't think of an angle that would be beneficial to the congregation that was in harmony with TTATT. Thanks to you all, I nailed it, and the School Overseer even said it was great and that he was having to nitpick to find something to counsel me on.

  I tried combining all of your suggestions but came out with a 10 minute talk instead of 5. So I had to condense it. I focused faith being placed not in the name of Jesus but in the person that name identifies and how the primary component or work of faith is love, as intructed by Christ's commandments, that love was the foundation for all other works, such as works of loyalty to Jesus. As suggested by Leaving_Quietly, I applied the entire chapter of James 2 on works to love and the importance it plays on our faith, using the examples of Abraham and Rahab with the love and faith they showed to Jehovah.

  And the ultimate win of the talk is that I didn't use preaching once as a work. I imagine that many of the brothers and sisters had never heard this explanation of James 2. I know I haven't. So hopefully a contextual explanation will open some of their minds just a little.

  Thanks Leaving_Quietly and everyone else for helping me get through this without wussing out and being able to provide something beneficial to the congregation at the same time. I may have to come to you all again later as other topics come along so that I can subtly help preach TTATT around JW doctrine to get the congregation to start thinking.