James Chapter 2 vv. 18-26

What did James know that will help us

There should be no doubt in a modern Christians belief and faith, and note, belief is held here separate from faith, you can believe in Christ, that's a mental event, yet have no faith, which is an exercise of all you are, based upon that belief.  Today's human is approximately 30% smarter overall than they were a century ago.  The average intelligence quotient is approximately 120 some slightly higher some slightly lower, but a century ago 100 was a good average.  Nearly all read, a century ago, very few did.  Nearly all know how to use some form of technology, a century ago that technology did not exist- in fact, for the most part wasn't even dreampt of yet.  What is about to happen, however, to Homo Sapiens, which is what we are, classification wise, whether you believe we are created or not, I happen to believe we are created, but I also believe it is totally possible to understand we are created and hold on to true scientific facts of existence, such as children with blue eyed grandmothers, tend overwhelmingly to have children who when they have children will have blue eyes- we're saying the trait tract misses a generation.  Lots of folks say that, "You have your mothers kind nature," wouldn't be an unusual statement at all, and yet it's a loud testimony to genetic predisposition, and God created us thus.  What's about to happen is exceptional in human history, we're about to make a singular advent into tying technology, learning and the human existence, into one singular and spectacular result.  The question that James asks in chapter two, therefore, becomes all the more important, because the very real possibility is, we'll gain the world and lose our souls.

18But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”

Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. 19You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

20You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless ^d ?21Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,”^e and he was called God’s friend. 24You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.

25In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? 26As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

Two times in my life my faith has come under fire, once, when we were challenged to do missionary work for those who existed on the streets of a major city.  The second time was more subtle, it was after I'd failed at a ministry, left the pastorate, and went into the most miserable state of recluse one can imagine.  Both times it wasn't my faith that got me through, it was Christ in supernatural intervention not allowing me to end it all.  Yes it's true, there are times in even the strongest faith, when they wonder if heaven isn't so much nicer, why wait?  The why wait is in service, that's why we wait, we stay here to fight, and fight, and love and love and fight some more, and love some more, and, you get it.  

We stay to live and to live more abundantly, as our Lord promised.  It's hilarious but my friends complain about their cell phones; "The service is terrible,"  "I don't know why we can't get better..."  You've heard it, you know exactly what I'm talking about, someone reading this in fifty years may laugh that we actually used such archaic forms of limited communication, might compare us to cave people making drawings with blood- but until then, we are holding in our hand more computing power than existed on the entire globe, in one phone, on November 23 1963 when John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated.  We have gained and gained and benefited from technological advancement as never before in human history, and what do we do with that, do we turn it into a tool for making disciples?  Wow wouldn't that be cool? But instead what do we do?

It's a great question that James is discoursing on because it goes to the root issue of why we do what we do, do we do it for bragging rights, to reassert to ourselves that we've got it together and the rest don't, that's a kind of divisive behavior and reasoning that the enemy of Christ and God, Satan, loves.  Or do we do things for others based on the fact that we believe that Jesus would want it done?  That's a trickier proposition than one might believe, and yet, it's been tried, many times.  We're about to start exploring the many ways that Christ's teachings can be applied to our lives today, and in that application, we're about to drive ourselves to the edge of what faith and belief and in fact tolerate and operate within.  James' asked the pivotal question, but in it lies several interesting challenges, for example, why would someone say, " “You have faith; I have deeds.”  Oh oh bit different approach to it, I can see, you're actually sitting back thinking, that's good, that's where we want to go.  Let's go!