Dear Amy:I think you made Steve Shackleton's case with this statement:John plainly tells us what the commandments are and what overcoming is, neither have nothing to do with "works". His commandments are to believe that Jesus is the Son of God and also love Him and one another...James 2:20-26 makes the case that faith and works are inseparable. Overcoming faith MUST issue in works. "Love Him and one another" does not mean "have warm feelings," "have good intentions," or "wish him the best." It NECESSARILY means works (James 2:16). I don't believe that "saving faith" that does NOT issue in works is a Biblical concept. But certainly, if there are degrees of sacrifice and degrees of obedience, there would also be degrees of reward.To construe "overcomer" as synonymous with "saved person" does a great injustice to a significant amount of scripture.There is a resistance to works within the body of Christ that truly must grieve the Lord. We've arrived at a point where we believe orthodoxy is all that is necessary, and that an orthodox believer is an "overcomer" and will enjoy the rewards that pertain thereto. So we have "textbook Christians" who can beat anybody in a game of "Bible Trivia" but whose lives are indistinguishable from the rest of the culture. Are they saved? Are they overcomers?The discarded precept is "orthopraxy" and I believe this is the thing that will distinguish between "overcomers" and the rest of the body.Your response to Steve made a number of valid and relevant points. 1 John 5 may not suggest that overcoming and works are related, since that is not the author's purpose. But the letters to the seven churches DO indicate the relationship. My intention is not to argue, but to motivate.You took exception to:"To be saved and to be an overcomer are two different things entirely. Salvation-eternal life-is a gift of God. It is not, it cannot be earned. But rewards are on the basis of works-to the one who overcomes-and must be earned by the individual Christian as he meets and conquers the temptations of the world, the flesh and the devil."and stated that "None of us are good enough ..." but the issue is not "goodness" but rather "obedience." You don't have to be "good" to obey. Rather, it appears that you become "good" when you obey. And there is no spiritual gift of obedience. Your position seems to be that either 1) everybody who is saved is automatically an overcomer and will, therefore, receive overcomer's rewards, OR 2) if a believer is not obedient, it is God's fault (God is the animator and we are all meat-puppets). That makes us volitional in an abstract sense, but in reality we have no freedom of choice at all. It also makes the Judgment Seat of Christ a farce: God (through His indwelling Spirit) makes you more obedient than He makes me, so you get rewards. (This suggests that all the discussion of the Bema Seat judgment is theoretical because no one will "suffer loss" (1 Cor. 3:15).Only believers -- saved people -- appear at the judgment seat of Christ, but Paul admonishes that "each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad." This removes God as the primary actor, because clearly the Holy Spirit in a believer will not cause or direct the indwelt believer to engage in "bad".I like Chuck Missler's definition: "Faith is not believing in spite of the evidence. It is obeying in spite of the consequences."Best,Steve