Wednesday, July 10, 2019

The Evidence of Faith

Thursday, July 11, 2019

What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions?  Can that kind of faith save anyone?  Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, “Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well”—but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing.  What good does that do?  So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough.  Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.  Now someone may argue, “Some people have faith; others have good deeds.” But I say, “How can you show me your faith if you don’t have good deeds?  I will show you my faith by my good deeds.”  You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God.  Good for you!  Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror.  How foolish!  Can’t you see that faith without good deeds is useless?  Don’t you remember that our ancestor Abraham was shown to be right with God by his actions when he offered his son Isaac on the altar?  You see, his faith and his actions worked together.  His actions made his faith complete.  And so it happened just as the Scriptures say: “Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.”  He was even called the friend of God.  So you see, we are shown to be right with God by what we do, not by faith alone.  Rahab the prostitute is another example.  She was shown to be right with God by her actions when she hid those messengers and sent them safely away by a different road.  Just as the body is dead without breath, so also faith is dead without good works.  James 2:14-26

The Apostle James illustrates faith with the lives of two very different, even unexpected people, Abraham and Rahab; one was a pillar of the community, while the later was the kind of person your mother warned you about.
In teaching us about the nature of faith, as including both belief AND behavior, James throws a curve ball that neither legalists, nor hedonists can handle.  The leagalists among us – those who want to judge others – come in all sizes and shapes, as do the want nothing to do with religion hedonists.  But, in the end, the one unalterable similarity between the two is arrogance.  Legalists, who have the Ten Commandments tattooed on the inside of their eyelids, want to catch people in the act doing their bad stuff and make sure they are exposed.  Hedonists, on the other hand, who are committed to having fun, and whatever else pleases them, don’t much care to please anyone else, God or legalists included.  Both legalists and hedonists are found in the pews on Sundays. 
As a side-note here, I’m sure Satan does his best to make sure they sit near each other to stir the pot of contention.  That’s the only explanation I can find for people who quote the Apostles’ Creed from memory, talk about love, and claim to be people of faith, but act like the Hatfields and McCoys, destroying each other, and thereby making growth in the church an impossibility.
Hatfields and McCoys indeed; I knew a descendant of one of the families…she was a dear lady who was a church member where I served as pastor.  Naomi was just “Nanny” to us, and her sweet disposition would never let you believe she belonged to a warring tribe like the Hatfields.  I asked her one time what the feud was about.  Her answer:  nobody really remembers.  The reason that feud started may not have been important enough to get it right in the history books, but the works speak for themselves:
Thirteen people were killed, eight jailed, one hanged in the war between the Hatfields and the McCoys…it started over a pig.[2]
Our beloved Naomi (Nanny) Perry didn’t exhibit any of the warring characteristics of her forbears; it’s amazing how faith can change even that started by a pig.
For You Today
Whether you hail from an Abraham family, or a Rahab family, whenever the pig wants to start a ruckus, it’s time to remember that you can be better than that.  As the old expression has it, never get into a mud-slinging contest with a pig; you’ll both get mud on you, and the pig loves it!  Rather, let your faith be largely seen by your works of love as you respond to Jesus’ call!
You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[1] Title Image:  Pixabay.com        Unless otherwise noted, Scripture used from The New Living Translation©
[2] What Started the Hatfield and McCoy Family Feud – and How Many People were Killed (not a direct quote…my synopsis summarizes several paragraphs

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