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There is no faith without works. Why? Because even a thought is a deed, a work. They are interconnected. In order to have faith, you must use your brain to think or say/write words of faith.
This happens only by advancing on the path of the cross, by God's sanctification. Hence it is impossible in ourselves, and why we are dependent upon God's grace and choosing His narrow path.
So that this will become more and more natural. Hence to have the law written on the heart = the soul = our character. This is to go from the law of the letter to the law of the spirit.
There are works of faith, and works of the flesh.
Faithbased actions will have this priority:
1. Love or focus for the Creator and the spiritual. The invisible, inner, deeper.
2. Love and focus for Creation, which is first and foremost humanity, but also animals, nature, the visible, material, created.
The only way we can truly learn to know Christ is to choose His way of the cross, His truth, so we can be sanctified by His word, His spirit, and the two fold purpose of the cross and of grace, which involve that we can not receive everlasting love, wisdom, joy, peace unless believing He loved us first. To learn to know Christ involve to know His character which is also His New covenant Law. If or when we cross over from the old to the new order, we will go from having mainly works of the flesh, and live by the law of the letter, to having mainly works of faith, and live by the law of the Spirit, where the letter is on second place.
This does not speak of earning salvation. Yet we must choose out of our free will which way to travel and what way we choose to continue on.
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