But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my
faith by my deeds. You believe that
there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.
You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith
without deeds is useless? Was not our
father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son
Isaac on the altar? You see that his
faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by
what he did. And the scripture was
fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as
righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend.
You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by
faith alone.
In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute
considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and
sent them off in a different direction?
As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.
Today, we encounter the heart for
which the book of James is known – the importance of action over against
faith. James is obviously responding to
someone or a group of someone’s that have pontificated on the importance of
faith alone. James believes there is a
danger in taking that idea to the extreme and seeks to offer a corrective. However, I don’t believe James is trying to
denigrate the importance of faith as he talks about works. In my opinion (and I’m not alone), James is
actually trying to make an important point about faith itself. Genuine faith in someone or a certain belief will
naturally inform what you actually do.
I’m sitting in a chair right now at
my desk. When I sat down in this chair,
I was acting on a belief that I have that this chair will hold me and will not
dump me on the floor. I’m sitting at
this desk writing this devotional because I believe that you and others will
read it (If I didn’t believe anyone was reading this, I wouldn’t waste my
time). I am currently working to prepare
for our worship service this week. I
have faith that others have been preparing as well (PowerPoint, communion,
music, etc) so that we will have a meaningful worship service Sunday
morning. So you see, my faith directly
informs what I do and what I don’t do.
James is simply trying to get us to
think more carefully about what we actually believe and he believes the best
way to do that is to look at what you do.
If you believe God is the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of the entire
universe, it makes sense that
worshipping God would be a priority. If
you believe Jesus taught and showed us how to lead a life of abundance and
impact, it would make sense that you would actually work at living into the
ways He did. If you believe sin is not
just something that God doesn’t like but is actually harmful to you and others,
then it would make sense that you avoid what God has clearly identified as
sin. If you only say that you believe
those things and those “beliefs” never change the way you act, James is simply
being bold enough to suggest that you might not actually believe those
things. I would agree.
There is an equal danger of overemphasizing
action over against faith. The apostle
Paul argues that case eloquently, but that message is for another day. For now, I encourage us to take a look at
what we do each day and what we choose not to do each day. This leads us to our questions for the day.
Question: What do our
daily actions and inactions say about what we actually believe? Is there any gap in between what we say we
believe and how we are willing or unwilling to act on that belief?
Prayer: Lord, we
believe in you. Help us in our unbelief.
Show us where we lack integrity between our proclaimed faith and our
daily decisions/actions. Amen.
Song: Screen Door –
Rich Mullins
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