Sandra,

One of the heading titles you quoted was: "If You Do the Will of the Father, You Will Live Forever"

Then I looked at it side by side with:

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

So I wondered, does the eternal life come about by keeping the commandments, or by believing on Jesus?

Clearly John 3:16 doesn't mention keeping commandments, or getting baptized, or any other works.

So when Jesus said, in I John 2:17b, "he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever", or when he said, in Matthew 7:21,

"Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven."

Some would show that the will of God is that we keep his commandments, thus making it "the way to heaven" or "the way to eternal life".

That would be works salvation, however, Jesus also said,

John 6:40 And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.

Now that agrees with John 3:16, believing on the Son is the will of the Father.

The commandments are not a road map to show us how to get to heaven.

The commandments, on the other hand, show us why we were condemned, on our way to hell, and needed to be saved.

Galatians 3:24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

 25 But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.

So when people try to terrify me, by telling me that if I do not keep the commandments, I'll lose my salvation, is that wise?

So if we lose eternal life, by not keeping the commandments, then it never was of grace, it would still be of works.

If bad works, or lack of good works, causes eternal life to be lost, where is grace, and where is faith?

One of the other things mentioned in that article was:

Matthew 22:37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

 38 This is the first and great commandment.

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty certain that every Christian that I have ever known, including myself, falls short of this commandment.

When we fall short of a commandment, we are not keeping it.

Or if some Christian is so bold as to say that they dutifully keep that commandment, then the next line has to be the clincher:

Matthew 22:39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Can any of us actually think that we are faithfully and dutifully keeping these two commandments?

The scribes & Pharisees thought that they were keeping the commandment, "Thou shalt not commit adultery".

However, Jesus helped them to see that they were not really keeping that commandment, after all:

Matthew 5:27 ¶ Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:

 28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

Then if we are not really keeping just one of those commandments, James pushes us over the edge:

James 2:10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.

If eternal life depends upon us keeping the commandments, then none of us is saved, none of us will be in heaven.

Some of us may then try to differentiate, to allow us to "get around" this.

When I was Catholic, I used to teach CCD, and we taught that there were two classes of sins, "mortal" and venial".

We taught those poor children that if they died with unconfessed venial sins, they would have to go to purgatory, but eventually heaven.

That was heresy that we taught, and completely unscriptural.

Since we knew that we were not truly keeping the commandments, we hid behind the "venial sins" as our escape clause.

Others, I've heard do the same, by saying the Christian, by not fully keeping a commandment, is erring, or making a mistake, but not sinning.

That is another heretical way around the commandments that we are not truly keeping.

Does the LORD care if we keep the commandments? Of course he does.

Does the LORD want us to live lawlessly after we are saved? Of course not.

His law, his commandments, are a reflection of his perfect, holy, righteous character.

Ephesians 2:10 is given "after" telling us how we are saved by grace through faith:

Ephesians 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.

 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

After we are saved, we are to walk in good works, not as a way to get saved.

However, the only way to truly keep the law 100% in our hearts, is when the Holy Ghost, in us, keeps the law.

He cannot do anything contrary to his law, all he ever does is in perfect accord with his law.

So, by our yielding to him, he is going to be doing the good works through us.

Whatever seemingly good works that we do, when it is not him, are thus spotted by our flesh, and no different then with the Pharisees.

The commandments are not the way to get saved or way to stay saved.

However, if we yield to the Holy Ghost, the good works will be his fruit in us, and not we of ourselves.

Otherwise we would have room to boast, but we can't, all glory belongs to the LORD.