Faith That Works

James 2:21-26, Terry Kizer

January 19, 2024 Terry Kizer Devotional - Growing in Wisdom 1

Read James 2:21-26.

As a young Christian, I began to serve in the church where I attended. In the beginning, I helped in areas such as painting, mowing grass, fixing and repairing all sorts of things. These areas came naturally to me because they matched my skill set. It was beneficial to the ministry, but it didn’t require much faith to serve this way.

Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.

Then, one day, my wife and I were invited to lunch, where we were asked to start teaching a class of kids between third and fifth grade. Now that was going to require some faith! Kids were scary, and I had no idea how to do that. We were challenged to love those kids, and the Lord would help us teach and lead them. We ultimately agreed, and God blessed this new ministry. I had made the step from works to “faith and works.” We learned so much. We worked hard, we prayed, and we believed. God taught us to sacrifice and to invest in those kids. We learned what faith that works looks like.

James has been telling “the twelve tribes in the dispersion” the importance of faith and works. His famous quote, “Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works,” challenges the reader to have faith that works.

He gives us two illustrations of what faith that works looks like. The first is Abraham and the active faith he had when he offered up his own son, Isaac, on the altar. James tells us that Abraham’s faith was completed by his works. This act “was counted to him as righteousness – and he was called a friend of God.” What an accomplishment that is!

For Abraham, faith and works worked perfectly together, and it was counted as righteousness. James 2:24 teaches that a faith that is real can be seen by the works of the individual. The righteous works of the believer are the evidence of a changed life.

We see, too, in Rahab the evidence of faith in her works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way to hide them from the evil king.

How has the Lord proven Himself faithful to you as you have taken steps of faith for Him? What have you had to risk? What living faith steps is He asking of you right now? None of us want to offer to God a faith that is dead.

Imagine what can happen in your life when you have a faith that works!

Imagine what can happen in your life when you have a faith that works!

Reflective Questions:

What are you doing now that would be considered “works without faith?”
What are you doing now that would be considered “faith without works?”
What should you be doing that would be considered “faith that works?”

Memory Verse:

For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. James 2:26

Prayer:

Dear God, I want to have a faith that works. I am thankful for the examples of Abraham and Rahab, who had extraordinary faith. I want to have faith like them. Help me each day to grow stronger and stronger in my faith.