Show Me What You Do and I’ll Show You What You Believe

James 2:14-26 - What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them?  Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food.  If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?  In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJgpU-43CD4

Faith AND Works

James 2:14-24, The Message

“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)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1JBSQMkQEo