How do you make faith real?

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.

James 2:14-17 NIV

Talk is cheap. What I say doesn't mean much if my actions don't match up. James really hits it on the head with his example. Someone you know is without clothes and daily food and they are right in front of you. If the best you do is wish for them to keep warm and well fed but you don't DO anything, like give them some clothes and buy them some food, then your faith isn't real. 

If my faith doesn't lead me to action, then my faith is dead. So, my question, to myself and you is: How can we make our faith real? 

Show Me Your Faith

What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such a 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. 

James 2:14-17

Someone once said, "It ain't bragging if you can back it up." On the other hand, if your actions don't match up with your words, you're deceiving yourself. A fellow teacher used to talk like she was just the most awesome teacher ever. To listen to her you would think that her students were always on task and just learning up a storm. But, whenever I walked by her room the students were swinging from the chandeliers and she was up there in front of the class oblivious to what was actually going on in front of her. During meetings we would look over data and her class always went down. 

The Christians who James wrote to were trying to say that they had faith that saved them but he was showing that their actions did not match up with their words. Let me put it this way: I can tell my wife I love her all day long but if I don't spend any time with her, if I don't help around the house, if I don't ever do things she wants to do, and spend time with someone else, how am I loving her? 

Christianity is not about the pie in the sky, salvation when we die. Christianity is about loving others by faith, today. I think this section of scripture is really about where reality hits our walks with God. James is talking to his readers about poor people of their congregations who they were pretty much blowing off so they could get the best seats to enhance their own status.  The point is that faith in action is meeting the needs of those around us. 

What need is right in front of your face? Frankly, I tend to think that if someone is sort of in my way, maybe that is who I am supposed to serve, by faith, at this moment. This year there has been several occasions where I was trying to get a certain amount of tasks completed by a certain time and someone asked me a question and I ended up helping them with anything from getting a printer to print to dealing with an immoral aggressive supervisor. The cool thing is I got to share my faith with some and pray for one colleague in his room! 

How do you live out your faith, today? 

JUST KEEPING IT REAL

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.

James 2:14-17 (NIV)

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!