“Dear friends, do you think you’ll get anywhere in this
if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking
about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon
an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, “Good morning, friend!
Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!” and walk off without
providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup—where does that get you? Isn’t it
obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?
I can already hear one of you agreeing by saying, “Sounds
good. You take care of the faith department, I’ll handle the works department.”
Not so fast. You can no more show me your works apart
from your faith than I can show you my faith apart from my works. Faith and
works, works and faith, fit together hand in glove.
Do I hear you professing to believe in the one and only
God, but then observe you complacently sitting back as if you had done
something wonderful? That’s just great. Demons do that, but what good does it
do them? Use your heads! Do you suppose for a minute that you can cut faith and
works in two and not end up with a corpse on your hands?
Wasn’t our ancestor Abraham “made right with God by
works” when he placed his son Isaac on the sacrificial altar? Isn’t it obvious
that faith and works are yoked partners, that faith expresses itself in works?
That the works are “works of faith”? The full meaning of “believe” in the
Scripture sentence, “Abraham believed God and was set right with God,” includes
his action. It’s that mesh of believing and acting that got Abraham named
“God’s friend.” Is it not evident that a person is made right with God not by a
barren faith but by faith fruitful in works?
The same with Rahab, the Jericho harlot. Wasn’t her
action in hiding God’s spies and helping them escape—that seamless unity of
believing and doing—what counted with God? The very moment you separate body
and spirit, you end up with a corpse. Separate faith and works and you get the
same thing: a corpse.”
Continuing to talk about faith, we hear from James, who was
Jesus’ earthly brother and one of the most prominent leaders of the early
church. Only Paul was more
well-known. Both were known for talking
about the nature of faith, but they emphasized different aspects. What Paul wanted everyone to know is there is
nothing you can DO to please God. This
makes sense that an all-powerful God is not impressed with what we can do. Paul emphasizes that only our abiding trust
in God – our faith -pleases him. But
James sees the danger of emphasizing this to the extreme. If only what I believe and trust in is what
matters, than I don’t have to DO anything.
So James says, “wait a minute!”
What you trust in affects what you do. He pushes it further – if it
doesn’t result in you doing something, is the trust really there in the first
place.
I think BOTH Paul and James are right. Only faith pleases God, but the faith that
pleases God can’t help but change what you do.
I believe God has called me to write.
In fact, I have believed that for close to twenty years. However, I didn’t get serious about writing
regularly until a couple of years ago. And
if I’m brutally honest, I didn’t faithfully start writing daily until this
pandemic started. What I believed twenty
years ago took a very long time to translate itself into regular faithful
action. I’m not proud that the process
took so long. I have confessed my
disobedience to God and I have been forgiven.
But what if I was, twenty years later, not even writing
anything I don’t have to write. I could
say that I believed the God has made me a writer, but I’d have an awful time
convincing anyone that it was anything more than a pipedream. I actually like the KJV version of Hebrews
11:1:
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the
evidence of things not seen.”
Faith, if it is faith, transforms belief into something
substantive. As it grows, you can
actually see it. It makes the unseen
seen. Faith is incarnational in this
way. God, who was unseen, incarnated
(became flesh) into a human being that could be seen. Belief becoming faith is the same
process. And just like with Jesus, God
is the author and finisher of that faith.
God wants to incarnate something substantive in you.
Today, think about the things you do. How are they a result of what you believe and
trust in? How are things you believe
becoming substantive? To the extent that
you can see that process, you can see the very fingerprints of God on you. So good faith-hunting!
I love you guys!
Prayer: Grant, O Lord, that what has been said
with our lips we may believe in our hearts,
and that what we believe in our hearts we may
practice in our lives; through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen. (prayer
by John Hunter)
Prayer
focus: Pray for three people you really
don’t want to pray for today. Pray that
God will bless them.
Song: That What’s Faith Can Do (Kutless)
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