Believing and obeying.

I was perplexed and puzzled for the longest time on faith and works.

For the longest time I was confused about what real faith is, and what it means to be saved apart from works.

So passages like Ephesians 2:8 and James 1:19-24, 2:8-6 made me really suspicious of the trustworthiness of  scripture.

The fault is not with scripture, but me.

I was denying the need for response to God's word, both my view of grace and works was twisted.

Grace was twisted to be throw up my hands and let God do everything. When I do good, it's God's honor, when I sin, it's God's fault. (Do you know what's wrong with this kind of mindset?)

Works was twisted to include repentance. I thought repentance was no different than trying hard to not sin, and morally perfecting myself. What I was doing was denying aspects of my life that are sins (If I just watched porn this time, it's ok, God'll understand and forgive if I ask later.), and denying my need to stop.

But God was good to me, even though I was so confused and going coocoo in the head, He didn't leave me to perish in my stupid thoughts. I eventually realized that repentance starts with recognizing my sins, and faith starts with recognizing the sufficiency of Christ's righteous life, His finished work on the cross for a double transfer (my sin debt for his righteous blessing), and his resurrection for hope in the future resurrection of the saints.

Whoever I trust, I listen to. So there comes works that are according to the Law of Christ.

I hope this is helpful to whoever is reading this that are going through the same thing.