Faithworks

When you do good, do you give a thought to why you do it?

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,' and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. But someone will say, 'You have faith and I have works.' Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith. - James 2:14-18

If James saw you doing good works, he might see that as evidence of your faith, whether you believe you have faith or not.

For James, it is more important to do the work of God than to focus solely on having a relationship with Him.  Show me how much you love me, is what God may be saying to us through James.

Jesus sent his disciples out to do the works he did, not simply to tell people about them.

Of course we need to come together in worship, to reinforce our faith, to gain strength for the journey and to be one with each other as a community and as a family, but if that is all we do, it is like training for a marathon we never actually run.

James is about running the race, getting out there and doing what we pray for strength to do.

I tend to agree, but I think we go through phases in our lives, and the doing phase may come later for some of us.  I know it has for me.  It took a long time for me to get out there and do what I saw was needed.

So, the path to faithworks, the actions we do that put our faith into practice, may be a long one, but it is good to know that we are all on that path, and at some point, we will encounter the right set of circumstances that trigger our action.

In the mean time, we pray for strength and wisdom, so that when the opportunity arises, we are ready.
Then it will come naturally, and we will wonder what took us so long.

More to come...