Thursday 29th
James 2:14-26
NIV (v17) – ‘In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.’
ESV (17) – ‘So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.’
Many see James as being in contradiction to Paul in his theology because Paul emphasized being saved by faith and not of works and James seems to emphasize both faith and works. Both are right and it is important to understand the context of both. Simply summed up Paul says that works will never save us, this prevents man from boasting that he has earned his salvation because it is by faith in the work that Christ has done on our behalf at Calvary, James would agree wholeheartedly with Paul, but adds that once we have been justified by faith it should be evident by the people we have become and by the things that we do. In other words, pre-salvation, we would have been living for self, but post-salvation we no longer live for self but have a genuine interest and concern for others, which is demonstrated by our love for them and in our willingness to do for them. This is all intricately linked to what we have seen in the previous devotions, our faith is demonstrated in our willingness to be doers of the word, to ensure we do not show partiality and in loving our neighbour as ourselves.
‘Faith without works is dead’, means that our faith must be a living, active, practical, and outworking faith, our lives, our actions, our ‘work’ demonstrates to those on the outside that we have had a genuine life transforming encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ, because we learn to love the unlovely, we are willing to help the helpless, we show mercy toward those who need mercy, we give compassion to those who are hurting. It does not mean that we set ourselves up to allow others to take advantage of us, I have had this happen to me and it has cost me, but as we have been transformed by the Holy Spirit, so we also live by the Spirit and are led by the Spirit and we learn to discern the areas (it is earlier in this book that James talks about us asking God for wisdom if we lack it) in which the Spirit is calling us to demonstrate our faith by works.
We thank God for Christian organizations who show God’s love through the things that they do in society, Christian food banks, mercy missions taking humanitarian aid where crisis has struck, Teen Challenge and other Christian drug rehabilitation organizations, soup kitchens etc. where faith is being demonstrated by works, and we can help them by supporting them, but also we can look for opportunity on our own doorsteps where we can seek to demonstrate the love of God to those around us by helping them out in ways in which will be a blessing to them. Of course, there can be a danger that arises out of this where the Christian Church can begin to overemphasize the social aspect of the gospel and lose sight of the fact that its priority is to preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and so we must ensure we do not lose that focus, that we concentrate so much upon the social aspect of our communities that we forget they have souls that need reaching and saving. And the greatest demonstration of my faith is to share the gospel, to offer eternal hope to those who at this moment are eternally lost.