James 2:18 & 22 Faith

¹⁸But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.
²²You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did.

This is going to be more of thought rather than a command or insight. I’ve been really hit with the thought of faith. The first thing I saw was the fact that faith always has actions. I’ve heard many people in my lifetime (which isn’t long) say they have faith, but their life and their decisions don’t show it. What I mean by that is their life decisions are purposely not on God’s word because a) they don’t know it or b) they’re too scared. Saying you have faith and not acting on it is not really faith, but knowledge. You have knowledge of God. Knowledge doesn’t get you into heaven (It doesn’t say “Well done my good and knowing son”) nor does it show you the blessedness of God (If you lose your life for His sake, you will gain life).

As v22 shows, action is the “completer” or the “perfector” of faith. So the question to us is….. do we have faith? Do we believe in the word of God and what God has promised us? All of these questions stem from 2 verses, Matt 6:33 (But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things (that the pagans run after) will be given to you as well.) and Matt 16:25 (For whoeverwants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.) These two verses are verses of faith not necessary for salvation but to show the true blessedness of God. Life in the latter verse symbolize satisfaction. You gotta have the biggest faith in the world to let your own life take a backseat while placing God in the front. Seek first, lose life for His sake, Be still (ps 46:10), etc, but all these promises have something crazy at the end. He will give you everything you want (Ps 37:4, Rom 8:32). The question is, do we have enough faith to actually go through with it because it says in 2 Cor 1:20 that all of His promises are a yes.

I know that some would think, “God doesn’t give me the things I want!”  Well, the question is, did you “seek first” or “lose your life for His sake?” Meaning, did you stop trying to make your life work for God? Seemingly, the way Jesus “didn’t make His life work” was by serving the people around Him. Is that what you do? Did you stop trying to make your life work for the sake of making other people’s life work? If you haven’t done that, then of course God didn’t give it to you yet.  If you owned a store and you hired a person, would you pay them before they did their hours? I bet not, so if we use this logic, why would God give you those things? You did not fulfill your duties so why does God have to fulfill His? But the crazy thing is God still gives you some of things you want…. It shows His true grace and true love for you.

I’m beginning to see the blessedness of God through my serving. Even though I suck at it and I fail consistently, God seems to hold true to His promise. I’m beginning to receive things that I want AND need. I’ll tell you now, those verses, they are true. God is faithful to His word. Follow it. Faith, it’s the only thing that pleases God and the only thing that can “astonish” Him.

So once again, the big question is:

Are you willing to stop your life for the sake of Christ whose ultimate ambition was to serve others?
Just remember His promises…

Mark 12:41-44 It’s the sacrifice, not the gift.

I’ve heard this story many times and I’ve known this application for years…..but for some reason, it only hit me hard today.

⁴¹Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. ⁴²But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny.

⁴³Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. ⁴⁴They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”

When it comes to service to the Lord, it’s not how much you give to God, but rather how much you sacrifice FOR HIM that he cares about. In this story, you see how the rich come and give a whole lotta money to the church, but they gave out of their wealth, probably meaning that if they were put in the same situation with less wealth, they wouldn’t do the same thing.

The poor widow, on the otherhand, gave up her two copper coins which don’t even add up to a penny, yet this is the women that God said placed more money in the treasury than all the other offering givers.

When you look at the sacrifice that the wealthy gave up, it was nothing. They still had plenty of money to live comfortably, securely, and get what they want. The widow gave up her comfort, her security, they things she wanted for the sake of the church and Jesus said that she gave more to the church than any of the other people.

So the real question you have to ask yourself is, are you willing to give up everything you have for the church and for God? Your comforts, your security, your wants?

They are not without reward though. Matt 6:33, Luke 9:24, Ps 37:4, Gal 6:9, these all have the condition statement that if you do God’s will and His work for His sake, you will be given everything you need. Do you believe it?

Truly, do you believe that?

1 Corinthians 10:10 Part 1:Complain?

1 Cor 10:10 And do not grumble (discontentedly complain AMP), as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel. (Along side Numbers 16)
The story in Numbers talks about a group of leaders who created a faction against Moses about the leadership of the Israelites (which is one of the OBVIOUS acts of sinful natures Gal 5). In turn, Moses told them that God will choose he who is holy. An interesting thought is this. v9 talks about how these Levites rising against Moses was given many things, and yet they wanted more. Also, Dathan and Abiram was saying to Moses to the effect of “We have yet to receive what you promised us!” (v14) This goes back with yesterdays application. Are you content with what you have or are you going to complain about what you don’t have? Are you content with what you have received or do you focus in what you have not received?

Now the idea of complaining….(the context is to grumble or complain about the situation and what God has done but we’ll look ahead to the other complaints) I looked back on my life and asked myself, “why do I complain and what are the reasons and what happens when I do?”

I remember telling God many times:
1)Why don’t I have this certain thing?
2)Why do I have to do this thing?
3)Why do I have to go through this thing?
I see the error of my ways. The way I see it, what I’m telling God, just like the Israelites, is:
1)Why are you taking so long to give me what I want?  (Cause you know that the Lord will give you what you need [Matt 6:33/Ps 37:4])
2) Aren’t I the master and Jesus is my servant or aren’t I better than Jesus? (You may not be saying this to yourself, but you’re implying it. John 13:15 Jesus is washing His disciples feet and says “I have set an example that you should do as I have done for you.” The idea is Jesus laid down what He had, the power of God v3, and served his disciples. If you don’t like the idea of serving, always complaining when doing something, you’re implying that you are better than Jesus and that you are his master (v16a “I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master…” so you not wanting to serve is telling him I’m better than this.)
3) “I don’t want to be like Jesus. I don’t want to be what God wants me to be.” The reason why people go through trials is so that one can be stronger, more complete in their faith (James 1:2-4). (This is for the blog) I remember hearing people say, “Come as you are,” or “I don’t have to change to come to Jesus.” This is totally true…..up to a point. People tend to leave out the second half of this part. The reason why you would come as you are is so that God can turn you into what He wants you to be. He molds you, shapes you, and polishes you to be like Him. My pastor gave a really good illustration about the fire and gold mentioned in 1 Peter 1. An impure gold is placed in a furnace so that the impurities would rise to the surface. It would then be wiped off and placed in the fire again until the impurities are gone. Then they would rub something really irritating on it so that it can be polished with the final product showing a reflection of the cleaner. It’s the exact same thing in life. The fires, or trials, also mentioned in 1 Corinthians 3, bring out the impurities in you. Have you noticed that when you go through crap, the real you comes out? Then you get rubbed by all the roughness in life so that you can reflect to others the one that polished you, God.
So this is the idea. If people say to come as you are, do you come that way every single time? If you were made Christian and you still “come as you are” from the first time you came, would God be happy? Don’t you expect growth from your children? Peter started off as a fisherman. Did he stay that way?

There will be a part 2. It’s interesting to write the blog at the end of the day. I realize how many times I’ve failed at what I’m trying to apply…

Isn’t it interesting that you don’t realizing that you’re failing until you already fail…?

1 Corinthians 10:6-7

1 Cor 10:6-7
6)Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. 7)Do not be idolaters, as some of them were, as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry.

Paul basically talks about the history of Israel during Moses’ time. I remember history teachers always telling that the reason why we study history is so that we don’t follow the same mistake as our forefathers did, the same reason Paul is telling us the history of Israel.

I went to Exodus 32, where the Paul quotes the latter half of verse 7.
1When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.”
Their relationship with God was dependent on man. When Moses doesn’t come back, they stray away from God. I am guilty of this. My walk with God, at first, was dependent on my pastor to the point where his words were almost that of God’s (which it technically was since he used Scripture constantly). Where’s your dependency on? God and his word that will last forever or man whose glory will fade like the flowers (Isa 40:6-8)

2 Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.”
In verse 22, Aaron gave his reason to why he did this. He was scared of the persecution and the “consequences” that these people would give. Even now, as I write this in my class, I feel a bit uncomfortable with my bible and me typing this thing out, but I gotta remember, persecution comes with Jesus (no servant is greater than his master John 15:20) and that Paul was not ashamed of the gospel (Rom 1:6) and that if I were ashamed of Him and His word, I’m in a world of trouble (Luke 9:26) Do you let others influence you on your walk with God?

3 So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron.
Those who don’t follow the Lord and His word will end up making their own aspects of God. 2 Tim 4:3-4 gives you the idea that at one point, people will just listen to what they want to hear and not follow His word….

4 He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”
This aspect really shows that God has placed eternity in the hearts of man (Ecc 3:11), but in this case, they put placed theirs on things that were not of God. It’s an easy concept. What is an idol? Anyone can say, “Oh, I have no idols,” but when you really rip up your day, can you say that with confidence? What takes more time, God or the world? As Jesus says,  No servant can have two masters (Matt 6:24). Rip up your day, see for yourself.

5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the LORD.”
Seeing how riled up they got, how passionate they got, you can’t help but to think Aaron felt it too. Why else did he build an altar and plan a festival? It doesn’t say that he was told to, he did it on his own, probably through the emotions he was feeling. The problem is, his actions aren’t based on the word and look where it takes him. Do we base our decisions and actions on the word? If we don’t, how else will we know what He wants? Rom 10:2-3

6 So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.

They were committed to something, and very committed seeing that they rose up early…. Do you show your commitment to Christ?….This would be a very beautiful picture, if it was for God, not the calf…

Application:
Is your day going to be about God or something else? Plan it.
Will you make your decisions going to be based on the word? Read it, plan it, do it.
Are you showing your commitment to God NOT MAN? Do it.

But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. Ps 1:2