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…

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