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.
As far as our real daily life as a Christian is concerned, this is either a very thin line or where the rubber meets the road. It is a thin line if you want to argue that faith is highly personal and you can't judge someone else because you don't know what is in their hearts. It is where the rubber meets the road if you want to seriously check your faith. I am sure there are other ways to consider this but, for me today, this is how I am approaching the text.
Francis Schaeffer (a favorite and influential author of mine) wrote a book entitled True Spirituality. He wrote it after struggling with the reality of his faith. I think we all go through times where we struggle with the reality of our faith. That is not a bad thing. If being a Christian doesn't make some sort of difference in your life, what good is it being a Christian? By difference I don't mean just having warm fuzzy's all day long. I mean that if being a Christian isn't different in how I approach the good and the bad, the joyous and the mournful, circumstances in my life, then what so what?
The telling aspect of these verses, for me, is that they are focused on others, not ourselves. Do you get that? Our world is an incredibly self-centered black hole of self-consciousness. Everything is about how it makes "me" feel. I once had a pastor friend of mine ask me what I thought of his teaching. I told him it was a bit hard to follow because he didn't follow an outline and his introductions were often longer than the actual "teaching". His response was, "Wow, that really hurts my feelings! Especially coming from you." Thanks, pastor, so it's not about how you feed me, one of the sheep, it's about how I make you feel?"
James, rather bluntly describes a situation where someone is in need. If you do nothing more than basically give a little "spiritual" verbal response, so what? "In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead."
The good news is that God has prepared good works for us (Ephesians 2:10) and he makes us alive and new in Christ! It is not necessarily about big things, it's about daily interactions, daily opportunities to act in love by faith.
What will be your faith moments today?
Father, help us to act in love by faith today. Praise be to you in us today!
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