Thoughts for the Day

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

But someone will say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Show me your faith without works, and I by my works will show you my faith. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder. Do you want to be shown, you senseless person, that faith without works is barren? Was not our ancestor Abraham justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was brought to completion by the works. Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness’, and he was called the friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. Likewise, was not Rahab the prostitute also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by another road? For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.

(Lectionary, New Revised Standard Version)

Thoughts

Did you know that even the devil believes in God, according to fables, to works like Milton's 'Paradise Lost', and even our bible. Well I, personally, don't believe in a horned figure with a tail as depicted in films, but I do believe in evil - which we see frequently in our world. But the saying about the devil believing in God has something to teach us. Faith that stops at saying "I believe in God" (as does the devil) but that has no effect on the way we live our life, is not real faith. Such meagre faith will eventually, we are assured, come before God's judgement.

The Apostle Paul says we are 'saved through faith and this is not the result of works' (Ephesians 2.8-9) so is James in the passage above contradicting him? No, rather he is looking at the kind of faith that saves us. There is a saying that explains this:

• "Faith alone saves, but the faith that saves is not alone, it has good works with it."

So it is the kind of works that go alongside our faith that will save us. It is living out our life by caring for others in all the practical ways that we can see in today's reading, which come because of our faith in Jesus Christ.

Lord Jesus Christ,
help us to continue growing in faith,
to accept the challenges of life
and continue drawing closer to You.
May we learn how to use our
time and talents
to put our faith
into action to help others
Amen.