In the last one-hundred years there has been an effort to divide Christians into two groups: carnal and spiritual (Read 1 Cor. 2:14-3:3). And they have likewise said that many have received Christ as Savior, but not as Lord. They would be the carnal ones. They would be saved but not really committed to Christ.

And surprisingly, some have been okay with this, because they say that if they accept Him as Lord they would be guilty of human works.

But this is crazy, because that would be dividing Christ. For He is both Savior and Lord. And so, when we seek to be saved we must accept all of Him, in all that He is—Savior and Lord. He must be our Savior and our Lord. If He is not, we really haven’t accepted Him (the real Him) at all.

And, as far as being guilty of “human works,” Jesus tells us that true faith requires works (James 2:14-26); that without works faith is dead. And works is not something we do without His help. He is the worker in us. When we are saved He gives us a new life, a life that naturally does the work of God.

And by the way, if you are called a carnal Christian, you may not be a Christian at all. Because carnality is not of God. A carnal person is a person void of spirituality, or void of the Holy Spirit. So here it is: a carnal person is a pagan, not a Christian; and a Spiritual person is a Christian, because he walks by the Spirit and he does the works of God (Romans 8:9-11).

However, there will be periods in the Christian’s life when he takes the wrong road or gets off track. But that will be only temporary. God provides for him a way to get back on track—he will just need to repent of his sins and start again. And this will happen many times because we are still in our fleshly body. And God understands this—and so should we. But we endeavor to abide with Him from day to day failing along the way, but getting back up again and again. And thank God that He has provided for us constant forgiveness and cleansing (1 Jn 1:9).

We depend on His constant forgiveness and cleansing; yet we strive to abide with Him and trust Him more.