Read today’s texts first: James 1-5
MAXIMize YOUR DAY
Our faith should be obvious in
how we speak and what we do.
how we speak and what we do.
While I love the entire Bible, cover to cover, two of its books always stand out to me: Philippians, because it has shaped how I live and what I teach, and James, because it challenges me to walk the rest of my talk! This book is so focused on our responsibility that Luther, who emphasized God’s grace and sovereignty, questioned its inclusion in the canon. He felt James contradicted sola gratia (grace alone) and sola fide (faith alone). But there was a good reason for James to emphasize the humanity of our faith - he was the half brother of Jesus.
We call him the half brother because both Jesus and James were sons of Mary, but they had different fathers: James was the son of Joseph and Jesus was the virgin-born Son of God. But James grew up with Jesus, seeing His humanity more than His divinity. He no doubt worked with Jesus in their Dad’s carpentry shop and probably had sawdust thrown in his face by his older brother. It’s understandable that the family of Jesus had trouble at first accepting Him as the self-proclaimed Son of God (Mark 6:1-6).
Yet James witnessed the consistency between the words and actions of Jesus, and eventually became not only a follower of Jesus but the leader of the first church in Jerusalem (Acts 15). It was this unique vantage point of watching Jesus integrate His humanity and divinity that formed James’ perspective on faith, that faith without works is dead (2:14-26). In his epistle, he emphasized the importance of not only hearing from God but doing what He says (1:22-24). Our faith should become obvious in how we speak and what we do (1:26,27).
“Lord, I know that faith in You alone saves me but the Bible also makes it clear that such faith must be expressed through my words and actions. Help me today to maintain integrity between Your Word and my walk!”
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