An Unimpressive Faith
James 2:14,17 My brothers and sisters, if someone says they have faith but do nothing, that faith is worth nothing. Faith like that cannot save anyone … If it is just faith and nothing more-if it doesn't do anything-it is dead.
Faith is something we all want to have, and yet, it’s something we’d rather not have to put into action, because if we need to actually use our faith, it means that the going out there is tough.
Faith. It’s a nice thing to have, isn’t it? It has a pleasant ring to it. And so, what we want to do, is we want to have it like … like a trophy. We polish it up, put it in the glass cabinet, we admire it, we think to ourselves – “Yep! That’s it. I have faith.” Maybe even show the odd friend or two.
But here’s the thing. Unless you put it into action, it’s not really faith at all. Unless you use your faith out there in the heat of the battle, out there where it really counts, in the places you’d rather not find yourself, in the tight spots, the binds, the confronting, even scary situations that you wouldn’t have chosen for yourself – unless you deploy your faith out there, it’s dead.
My brothers and sisters, if someone says they have faith but do nothing, that faith is worth nothing. Faith like that cannot save anyone … If it is just faith and nothing more-if it doesn’t do anything-it is dead. (James 2:14,17)
Sure, the word “faith” is a noun; it’s a thing. But unless you do something with it, unless you put it into action, unless you live by it, it’s meaningless, it’s dead.
Jesus talked about that very thing – faith in action. He said, if we have faith the size of a tiny mustard seed, we can move mountains – we can achieve the impossible.
I tell you, it’s just as well – because my little mustard seed of faith, it looks so unimpressive up there in my display cabinet.
Faith without works is dead.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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