"What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his 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 what I do." James 2:14-18
First of all, for those of you who follow this blog, I'm sorry it's been so long since my last blog entry. I'd like to say it's because I've been so busy, but I really have no excuse. The only reason I haven't been blogging is because I've slacked off with my devotional time. There is certainly no good excuse to neglect the reading of God's word, in fact what I write about today might touch on this.
Anyway, on to the entry...
This past few months, more than any other period in recent history, I've been the recipient of the generosity of my fellow man. And as I was reading the above passage with my Bible study group last night, I got to thinking of how blessed I've been by people putting their faith into actions.
First of all, I know a lot of people might point at this verse and say exactly what the someone in the passage said; "this passage is obviously saying that it's the works that get you into Heaven, and if you want to believe that, that's fine for you, but I believe it's my faith and since I have that faith, I'm all set." And then you have the other side of the coin, where someone will say; "Look at all the stuff I've been doing, I'm involved in this ministry at church, I do this and that, I've done enough stuff that I'm definitely going to get into Heaven." The mistake that both of these people are making is that it's not an either/or situation, it's a both/and situation.
James is saying that you can't have true faith without it flowing out into your life. I have been blessed with wonderful friends who let their faith flow out into their life every day. I've been blessed with monthly supporters who have continued to support me even when I haven't been able to go out with Coastlands, and I have friends who, even though they can't financially support me, they pick me up and drive me places and make sure I can get to things. In both cases I can see how their faith is being lived out in their actions.
So my challenge to all of us today is to make sure our faith is being lived out in our actions. And I promise I'll be writing more often.
God bless you!
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