Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Dead or Alive?

"As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead" (James 2:26).

If you have a body without any spirit in it, all you have is a dead body. It may be a beautiful body and may be decked in the finest clothes, but without the spirit, it's still just a dead body. And if you have faith without any deeds or actions, you may have a beautiful faith and you may have it all decked out in the latest Christian jargon, but without deeds, it's still just a dead faith. A body that doesn't live is no good to anyone; and neither is a faith that doesn't live. "It's not what you believe that counts; it's what you believe enough to do." Faith that doesn't live is no good.

In all of my life as a Christian, any time that I've read this verse, I have always reversed the equation in my mind. In other words, I've always read it like this: spirit equals faith; body equals deeds. And so, I interpreted it to mean that the spirit makes the body alive; therefore, faith makes deeds alive. But that's not correct. James, the Lord's brother, says that the body equals faith; spirit equals deeds. This changes everything. The interpretation now is that deeds makes faith come alive! Not the other way around.

In the same way that spirit animates a body, the Lord desires for deeds to animate our faith. The Lord wants faith to produce actions. "Faith expressing itself through love" (Gal. 5:6) will produce deeds of love. Jesus never intended for the gospel to simply be assimilated by our brains and stored away inside of ourselves. He intended it to be received and acted upon (Matt. 7:21-27). He desires that my belief will be expressed through loving obedience and trust. He desires more from me than an intellectual nod of approval and agreement. He expects actions of love that animate my faith. Anything less is dead and useless.

Therefore, how do you tell if faith is dead or alive? By deeds of love. If faith doesn't have these with it, it's only a dead faith.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Knowing Is Not Enough

Luke 10:25-28

One day, I guy asked Jesus, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus asked him what he thought the answer was based on his understanding of the Law. The guy answered, "Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; and love your neighbor as yourself." Then, Jesus said to him, "You have answered correctly..." (v. 28). Can you imagine what it must feel like to hear Jesus say that you have the correct answer? Especially when the question is, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" I'm sure this guy felt pretty good about himself, knowing that Jesus, the controversial rabbi and spiritual "media figure" of the day, said publicly that you were right on. "Jesus said," he may have thought to himself, "that I have the right answer." And he did. And I - just like that guy - usually am satisfied to stop right there, with only the right answer. But the rest of Jesus' answer painfully reveals the bankruptcy of only the right answer: "Do this and you will live."

The truth is, Jesus was answering the man's question with greater honesty and accuracy than he himself wanted. His question was, "What must I do...?" Maybe, like myself, he had become smugly satisfied with right answers and fluffy excuses that let you you off the hook without doing any damage to your own self-perceived, self-righteous image. Regardless of his condition and motives, the answer Jesus gives exposes our selfishness while revealing the liberating truth: knowing is not enough, we must do. Right answers must be lived in order for us to truly live. James says, "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says" (James 1:22).

Jesus was the Word of God in human flesh (John 1:14) and lived among us. Now, dwelling in us by the Holy Spirit, he still wants to be the same. May we seek to know and to do, so that Jesus will once again live among us, and that we may truly live.