Real Faith Shows Up In The Choices You Make

The hardest moments of faith are rarely the dramatic ones. They’re the quiet seconds when you realize you could cut a corner, stay silent, or ignore what you know is right and nobody would catch you. That’s where obedience becomes real, and that’s where this conversation goes. 

We unpack a question many believers carry: if salvation is secure in Christ, why does “doing the right thing” still matter? I share why the goal is not earning heaven through works, but letting a saved life produce evidence, fruit, and transformation. We walk through the Book of James and clear up the common confusion about faith and works, then connect it to Jesus’ picture of branches that are meant to bear fruit. Spiritual growth has milestones, and when we stop growing, it isn’t harmless, it’s a warning. 

From there, we get practical and personal. I tell a simple story from a grocery store that turned into a real integrity test, and we look at John 14:15 as a clear picture of love-driven obedience. We also stretch the meaning of “the right thing” beyond generic morality into purpose, calling, and timing, including James 4:17 and the sin of omission: failing to do the good we already know to do. If you’ve been wrestling with spiritual maturity, Christian discipleship, or how to obey God without slipping into legalism, this will help you name what’s happening and respond with clarity. 

Subscribe to Light of Life, share this with someone who needs encouragement, and leave a review so more people can find the podcast. What’s one “right thing” you feel God prompting you to do right now?

Transcript

Welcome And A Real Faith Journey

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Light of Life podcast. I'm your host, Ritendo, and I just want to take a moment to thank you for taking the time to listen today. We are on episode 10. And honestly, I still find it so surreal. It's surreal to me because it feels like we just started just yesterday, but we are already ten conversations in, growing together, learning together, and just allowing God to define our understanding of what it is to walk in faith and what it looks like to be in relationship with Him. If you're joining us for the first time, this podcast exists to help you on your journey of faith in a very real and honest way. I try my best to paint a very realistic picture. I don't want to paint a picture, a perfect picture that a lot of religious people have painted of the life you're supposed to walk, because the truth is you're going to have ups and downs. You're going to fall. But we pray that when you fall, you find your way back up and you continue.

How Church Understanding Grows

SPEAKER_00 1:38

One of the things that I have come to realize is that there are so many misconceptions about what a godly life actually looks like. The church itself has gone through many seasons, seasons of growth, seasons of immaturity, seasons of learning. And there were certain times and certain practices and teachings, even, that were accepted simply because that was the level of understanding at that time. And we don't fault our church fathers and bishops and all the people that came before us. I can only imagine what it was like during that time. You're studying the word, you have no concordance, no Bible atlas, no commentary, you only have oral traditions and church traditions and the magisterium of the church at the time. That's all you have. So I would like to cut them a big chunk of slack, because to be honest, I don't know what I would have done in that situation. Right now, we know better because we have a lot more resources, and people are just the church has matured. And because the church has matured in Christ, we are having more and more to revisit and to refine. And sometimes, in all honesty, we are having to unlearn certain things that have been propagated. I've studied church history as continue to study and read up on church history, and I find myself, or before I found myself, really questioning and asking God, how could this go on for so long? This is the church of God. Why did it take so many years for certain truths to become clear? How can the Lord allow this to happen? And what he impressed upon my heart, and of course, through my studies and trying to understand, I realized that the New Testament metaphor for the church as the body of Christ. I know that it was the Apostle Paul who was initially credited with coining and developing that specific phrase and the theological concept of the church as the body of Christ. If we are the body of Christ, the actual literal body of Christ, the physical body that he had, went through the normal common stages of human growth, that is, infancy, the toddler stage, preteen years, teenage years, all up until his 30s. And I would like to believe that when he was still a baby, he needed to be protected. He was still messing himself, he couldn't feed himself. And certain things are acceptable at the infancy stage. So, in the same way, the church as the body of Christ went through and is still going through all those different stages of maturity. Something so profound was mentioned during our Passover service at church, and I thought it was so touching. The man of God said that Christ didn't die for the church, he died for the world because there was no such thing as the church when Christ died. So what you see at Pentecost right up into the apostolic era, the patriarchal era, going down the different stages of the church's growth from its inception. That's its infancy stage. So, like I said, I definitely would like to understand that the mistakes in doctrine and teaching that came with that are just an indication that the church was growing and is still growing. But as I acknowledge that truth, I don't want you to walk away thinking that doing what is right does not matter. Because we are moving away from the allegorical meaning of scripture that people used to do and legalism and what is right. Should I eat pork? Should I not? Should I keep the Sabbath? Should I not? Should I wear pants? Should I not? We're moving away from that. But as a believer, you're still expected to do the right thing. It's still a requirement for you to do and to obey the will of God for your life. So I don't want to move from one extreme to the other, that we're throwing away all sense because we're not religious or we are not legalistic. In fact, I would think it means the opposite. Because as a believer, if you truly desire a deeper and closer and more intimate relationship with God, there should be something in you that wants to do what is right. Of course, not out of pressure or fear, but out of love.

Obedience Without Earning Salvation

SPEAKER_00 7:43

And that is where I want us to begin today, because I want us to talk about doing the right thing, the right thing to do. What does that mean? The normal, normally, when you hear that, oh, doing the right thing, it's very intimidating. I don't want to like, I've been there before because you start thinking, is there a template for it? If there is, where do I get said template? If you are born again, your salvation is secure, very, very secure in Christ. It's not something fragile that you're constantly losing and regaining. So when I talk of doing the right thing, I'm not saying do the right thing in order to earn your salvation or to keep your salvation. Because making a mistake or missing the mark is not going to make you lose your salvation. That we're not at the level of salvation anymore. At this point, we're sure, as long as you have accepted the Lord Jesus as your savior and you have begun the journey and a relationship with him, you're set as far as entering the kingdom. Your standing, your position in him is set. What is maybe changing and may need to be worked on is your condition.

James On Fruit And Milestones

SPEAKER_00 9:12

The scripture I'm going to really be focusing on or begin with is really often understood, misunderstood, rather. For a long time, when people read, you know, the book of James is where all these famous, I don't want to say infamous, but the famous scriptures show me your faith bioworks. You know, people have taken it to mean that you have to constantly participate in sacraments so that your faith stays intact. But when I studied the scripture, James was writing to a group of people that were already saved. He was writing to a church that has already received salvation. So the conversation is not do works so you can be saved. But rather, he was saying, because you are saved, let your life begin to reflect it. Let there be evidence, let there be fruit, let there be something that shows that this thing you say you believe in, it's actually alive within you. That's what James was talking about. Because it's not enough for you to simply say, I am born again, and then remain the same in every way. It means there's something missing somewhere. Yes, you belong to God. Yes, heaven is yours. We have settled that. You are in right standing with him. But there's an expectation that you will grow and that something will actually come out of your life as a result of your relationship with him. And Jesus spoke about this so clearly. It should be John chapter 14, John chapter 15, when he speaks about branches and fruit, that the desire of the father is not just so you are connected, but that you are fruitful, that there's evidence of life, evidence of growth. There needs to be evidence of transformation in your life. And coming back to that metaphor of the baby, the child that is growing, when you have a baby, you expect that baby, maybe at three months or four months for some babies to start being able to sit, maybe leaning on something, supported by something. At six months, they can sit on their own. Maybe seven, eight months, they start getting on, you know, their hands and knees to crawl around. They stand up holding on to certain things that they're when they're in like nine, 10 months, they start walking. That's the normal progression that your pediatrician would give you when you go for checkups. Like, oh, okay, how many months is your baby? Okay, are they crawling now? Oh, great, great. But when you go for your six-month checkup with your baby, and then you mention that your baby is not sitting up, that's a cause for concern. Then they start screening that child for a disability because they haven't reached certain milestones that we expect them to have reached. So it's the same way for you as a believer. If you don't show forth those fruits, that's what the book of James is talking about. We become worried and we become concerned, it means you have a disability or you're living with a form of spiritual disability if you have not reached certain milestones by a certain spiritual age. That progression, it shouldn't be forced, but it is definitely expected. The worst mistake that you can make as a believer is to think that it's okay to act like everyone in the world. It's so easy to rationalize, well, this person hurt me, so I'm going to do it back, or I don't have to go the extra mile with this person. But that's not the way of God. He explicitly asks us to do what is right, even when it's not easy. It's called the right thing to do, never the easy thing to do or the pleasurable thing to do. When someone hurts you, when things happen to you, and there's an expected emotional response, it's better to pray for the Holy Spirit to help you so that you know how to navigate. And this brings me to the first reason why it's in your best interest to still do the right thing, even when your salvation is already secure. Remember, we mentioned that your salvation is secure, so why should you do the right thing? I mean, I'm already in, right? But the first reason is love. Your love for your creator. Jesus makes it so plain in John 14, verse 15. He says, If you love me, keep my commandments. And I think sometimes we read that as an instruction, but it is an actual revelation if you look at it. He is showing us the nature of love. Love isn't just something that you feel, it's something that you express, it's something that shows up in how you respond, in how you choose, and how you live. People can tell, like this man loves this woman. This woman loves her children. We can tell. We don't have to ask you if you love someone. We can just see. In a love relationship, you naturally want to please the person that you love. Not because you're afraid of them or because you're trying to earn something from them, but because you're calculating what you will get in return. There's something in your heart that says, I want to make this person happy and I want to do things that bring them joy. And the beautiful thing that I love about our Lord and Savior, he has never made it complicated. He tells you plain and simple, John 14, 15, if you love me, keep my commandments. So he has given us what I would like to call a cheat sheet. You don't have to wonder anymore, like you do with your wife at home, what can I do to make her happy today? And you try, it's trial and error. It's not trial and error. That's how you show it. You keep his commandments, you live in obedience to him. So let me tell you this story.

Love As The First Reason

SPEAKER_00 16:04

This happened the other day. I think last week, I'd been given this long list of groceries and items that I needed to get for my house. And I went into the store, and the first thing that you see when you enter this particular uh grocery store, it's like the produce section. Like you have all these different vegetables, fruits, and so I happened to spot some avocados. And it was this type of avocados that were actually ripe already. And rarely, at least where I live, rarely do you get to actually find an avocado that's already ripe in store. So I grabbed the avocado. Well, I grabbed two avocados. They were a bit tiny, but I was like, you know, I don't want to grab too many since they're already ripe. I went to uh in this particular store, you have to go to one of the attendants in the store, I don't know what you call them, and they weighed for you. They were not packaged. You had to actually grab the ones that you want. So the guy waited for me, and what he was supposed to do, like he weighed, and he's supposed to stick the price there and then seal it so that nothing additional can be added after. This guy, I don't know if he was tired or what. He just stuck the price tag on there and he didn't seal the plastic bag. And a voice said to me, I've never done this in my life. But this is just, it was very weird. It just shows, I don't know if it's the sinful nature, or you can try to say, Oh, the devil was trying to influence me, but some an idea that has never come to my mind came to me that time. Look, he didn't seal the bag. So you can go and grab two or three more avocados and put them in there. And literally, when you get to the cash register, the guy, the lady or the guy, whoever is there, they're not gonna check. They're just going to, so you will have, you know, gotten five avocados for the price of two or the price of one. And for a second, let me say two seconds, I was like, hmm, I actually pondered on the idea. And then I came back to my senses. Because I have the mind of Christ, I have the Holy Spirit. No one would have known this. Even if they would have known, I would have explained the way. I had the money to pay for it. But this is what I did. I said, I don't do that because it's not the right thing to do. I literally had to speak back to myself and say, no, we don't conduct ourselves that way. No one was watching except the Lord. It came out of just my love and respect for the relationship that I had built in, you know, so many years. And I said, no, I'm not going to do this. It seems very small, right? But I'm saying in that moment, I still had to check my identity and say, who am I? I don't do this, I don't conduct myself in this way. And flowing from that, I want to lead you into the second reason why doing the right thing matters.

The Right Thing For Your Calling

SPEAKER_00 19:32

And I always come back to this. It matters because of your purpose and because of your assignment. So this is where I want you to stretch your understanding of the right thing beyond just morality and doing the right thing in terms of right and wrong. But there is such a thing as the right thing for you. Like in scripture, we have a prophet, the prophet Hosea, who was literally commanded as part of his prophetic assignment. His whole prophetic career revolved around marrying a prostitute and using his story of heartbreak, reconciliation. He used that story. That was his ministry. For you, if you say you want to go and marry a prostitute, that is definitely not the right thing for you to do. So we live life as per prescription based on what we're supposed to be doing. We have examples of Moses who went and he married a Cushite woman, someone who he was explicitly or the children of Israel had been banned, prohibited from marrying. Even Jesus at our church, uh, we were taught that Jesus lived his life, even if you read scripture, he lived his life according to what was written of him. He knew that I'm supposed to die in Jerusalem. He knew that my time has not come. Many times that at the wedding at Cana, John chapter, it should be John chapter 2, he said, My time has not come. He knew what was supposed to be happening at what time. That is the right thing to do. That's what we're talking about. There are certain actions that are morally neutral, but then they become sinful because you ignored them based on the prescription for your life. And when you begin to see it that way, you realize that because two people are in the same situation, it doesn't mean they're required to handle that situation the same way. Two people can be in the same situation and respond in two different ways, and both those people can be right before God. Because it wasn't just about what's generally acceptable, but what is aligned to your assignment.

Sin Of Omission And Speaking Up

SPEAKER_00 22:16

Now, if you go to the book of James, chapter 4, verse 17, there's a scripture that I learned, it was probably a memory verse that I learned when I was maybe about nine or ten years old. And I remember I kept on reading it and reading it, and I was trying to understand, and it was ingrained in me from a young age. James said, To him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin. That means if you know the right thing that you ought to be doing at that particular time, and then you neglect to do it, you choose not to do it, you are reluctant to do it, that to you, even though it might be a morally neutral action, that is a sin. And I don't want you to think of sin as only like the religious sense of something that is really like a devastatingly evil action. But the word sin covers more than just bad deeds, it includes falling short of your intended purpose of existence, that is sin as well. Even though God is a merciful God, there are still consequences when you do disobey. So what James here is talking about in chapter 4, verse 17 is what is called the sin of omission. It's not about ignorance, but it's actually focusing on your awareness. The scripture is speaking about those moments where something has already been made clear to you, either explicitly or the Holy Spirit has uh led you to a certain understanding where you sense within yourself that this is the right thing for me to do, and you choose not to act. That's what we call the sin of omission. It's not necessarily doing something wrong, but failing to do what is right. So a lot of people will think, oh, but I didn't do anything wrong. But if the Lord commanded you and he said, Go ye therefore, and you don't go, even though you didn't you didn't commit adultery or fornication, you you tried to keep yourself clean, cleanse your thoughts, the fact that you didn't go on an assignment that he sent you to do, that is sin. The fact that you didn't act when he told you to act, that is sin. What I want you to understand is not only are we accountable to God for our actions, but also our inactions. Knowing the right thing to do, the fact that you were even conscious enough to know the right thing to do imposes a certain responsibility for you to act accordingly. Do you speak up when you see injustices happening around you? And I know it's very difficult because sometimes if you're in heavily and and seriously polarized communities, it can be difficult for you to speak up for what is right. But we I feel like we're being let down and we do let ourselves down because a lot of times we see wrongdoing and wrong things, and we do nothing about it. If you see a child being abused, do you turn a blind eye and say, hey, this is not part of my family? Do you know, like next door, I know that this person has nothing to eat and I'm not going to do anything about it because it's none of my business. They have their life, I have mine. When you know what is right, you need to proceed to execute that right, that good. That's what we call active faith. It's our faith, we are saved, but our faith should be demonstrated through our actions, and we can never run away from that. It's not enough for you to just know God's will. But you have to live it out in your daily life. Throughout scripture, we see God is not only a father who saves, but he's a master who rewards. There's a difference between being accepted into the kingdom and then how you steward your life when you're now in the kingdom. The Lord pays attention to all those things. The Lord pays attention to how faithful you are, how obedient you are. So when you bring all of this together, I hope that you finally see that there is a depth to doing the right thing. It's not about legalism, it's not about the law, it's not about just morality. But there's so many aspects to doing the right thing. And I don't want you to get lazy with it and say, I'm already in the kingdom, I'm already getting to going to heaven. I don't want you to get to misconstrue that theological concept. Because at the end of the day, the goal is not so just you can say I'm saved and I'm good. The goal is that your life has to reflect that you are saved. There needs to be fruit in your life, there needs to be evidence that you are saved. There needs to be evidence that there is growth, that there is a man and a woman who is walking with God in this generation, not just believing in Him from a distance. And the truth is, the difference between a stagnant believer and a fruitful one is often not just knowing what to do, but it is in the obedience. How do you obey? How obedient are you to that knowledge that you now have? It is the willingness that you have to respond when God speaks, especially when it is inconvenient for you, even when it stretches you, even when it does not make immediate sense. Are you obedient enough to say, Yes, Lord, I will do it for the sake of our relationship, for the sake of my love for you, for the sake of the reward that you promised me? I will live my life this

Rewards, Prayer, And Closing

SPEAKER_00 29:30

way. So, the question that I want to leave you with today is not just am I doing the right thing in general, in the sense of morality, but am I doing what God is asking of me right now? Am I doing the right thing for me in alignment with my life? Because your life is never random, it's not random at all, and your obedience is not small. Every moment you choose to respond to him, you're stepping into a deeper fullness of what you were created for. If you allow me at this moment, I want to pray for you. Holy Spirit, we love you, we thank you so much for this lesson today. We thank you for pointing out what it means to be a believer that our salvation is not going anywhere. But we understand today through this podcast that we still need to bear fruit, even though we've been saved, especially because we've been saved. You expect us to bear fruit and you expect us to do the right thing because we are in relationship with you, because we seek a reward from you, empower us with the zeal and the energy to do what you have called us to do in due season, in alignment with our purpose, in Jesus' name. Now, thank you so much for joining me today. If you found this episode helpful, please forward it to your friends, your family, your loved ones. Now, this has been the Light of Life Podcast. As usual, stay in the light.