Workless faith or faithless works, both are equally dead because they are alone. We learn in James 2 that if a man has faith, but not works, it prospers him nothing. Likewise, works without faith does not get a man anywhere either. Rather, you need both. It is not enough to just say you believe without showing that you believe. You show your faith by how you live and serve your life...in doing good works. We are not perfect, we need Christ' atonement to be saved. So yes, we are indeed saved by His grace...but it is only "after all we can do." (2 Nephi 25:23) Thus, we must live a life faithfully doing good works and then after we have done all we can do, Christ will fill the gap. Like it says in Matthew 7:21, we have to submit ourselves to the Lord's will and see that we do it. We can't just be hearers of the word, we must also be doers. Furthermore, in Matthew 19:16-17 we are counseled to do good things like keeping all the commandments so that we may gain eternal life. Thus, we must do "good things" or good works to prove ourselves ready and worthy to accept eternal life. We read in Ephesians 2:10 that we are saved by the grace of God through our faith and that we can walk with God in good works. So we can clearly see that we must acquire both--faith and good works--because in the end, it is by our good works that we are judged. (Revelations 20:12-13)
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