I had sushi for dinner tonight. It was delicious. I was enjoying the nice atmosphere and food, when two women came in and sat nearby to order their meals.
They began to chat about life, and one of the women told her friend that she was filing for divorce from her husband. She then said that she had already found a good man, and she was in love with him. Her friend asked her where they had met, to which the first woman replied "We were friends in church before I decided to get a divorce. He is a really great guy who understands me and I just love him like I've never loved before."
After this remark, the second woman asked her friend where they had gone to church, and after learning where they went, she told her where she went, and they both laughed and ordered salads and a very interesting sushi roll that included jalapenos and egg.
I was reading James before I had gone to eat, and it was in my mind as I heard these women talking, both of whom would consider themselves faithful Christians.
James 2:14-26 offers a stern warning to us.
"What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them 'Go in peace, be warmed and filled,' without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
But someone will say, 'You have faith and I have works.' Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe-and shudder! Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, 'Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness'-and he was called a friend of God.
You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead."
If you have never read this passage before, it might alarm you. After all, isn't the great sounding call of the Protestant "by faith alone?"
Many people have thought that Paul and James fought over this issue of justification by faith alone. Paul clearly states in Galatians 3:1-14 that only those who by faith accept Jesus will be counted righteous. And here, we have James saying that "... a person is justified by works and not by faith alone."
Read carefully my friends. Paul and James are not fighting each other; rather, they are complementing one another.
Paul uses Abraham's faith in following God away from his homeland into a foreign one to show that Abraham was saved and justified by God because of his faith in what God had told him.
James uses Abraham's faith in sacrificing his son to show that the Abraham's faith was "completed," or shown to be a genuine saving faith by his obedient actions towards God.
This passage goes on to say that "faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead." James uses the example of the "christian" who encounters someone with a physical need, and instead of supplying the need, the "christian" just says some cheap words and moves on.
Both Paul and James are echoing Jesus' teaching on those who call him Lord but do not obey what he says. Jesus says these people prove they are not true disciples because the storms and trials of life come, and they are not built up by a life of obeying Jesus' commands. The storms come, and the 'faith' of these people is totally destroyed and proven useless.(Luke 6:43-49)
Guys and gals, the Scriptures are not meant to be things we simply chew over in our heads a little bit, and then leave until we come home or get free on the weekend.
They are meant to be a measuring rod for our lives. We are expected to look into the Scriptures, and see how they tell us to live, and then go out and do that. If we look into the Scriptures and see an area or areas that do not line up, God is not content for us merely to be 'bummed out' about it. He expects us to meet him everyday and ask him to change our hearts until they love him and look like him in all areas of our lives. (Jeremiah 31:31-34)
I pray that God lets us see the wickedness in all our hearts, the wickedness that drives us back to our Father who is willing and loving to change us.
-Brett
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