SPIRITUAL
DIARY FOR 09-17-03
My
Worship Time Focus: Dynamic Faith
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference: James 2:20-26
Message
of the verses: “20 You foolish man,
do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? 21 Was not our ancestor Abraham considered
righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that his faith and his actions
were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says,
"Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,"
and he was called God’s friend. 24 You
see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone. 25 In the same way, was not even Rahab the
prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the
spies and sent them off in a different direction? 26 As the body without the spirit is dead, so
faith without deeds is dead. (NIV)
In this
long section James is writing about dynamic faith, the kind of faith that all
believers have to have in order to be believers in Jesus Christ’s finished work
on cross for the saving of their souls.
To recall in the first two sections James wrote about a dead faith that
only affects the intellect, and a demonic faith that affects the intellect and
the emotions. Now in this section he
writes on a dynamic faith that affects the whole man and, is based on the Word
of God. Faith always has to have an
object, and of course the object of dynamic faith is the person of Jesus
Christ. “We are not saved by faith in faith;
we are saved by faith in Christ as revealed in His Word.” (Be Mature)
True Bible faith is believing the Word of God in spite of circumstances
or consequences.
In this
section James give two examples of dynamic faith with the illustration of
Abraham and also of Rahab, but first he gets on his reader’s case a bit by
asking them if they actually believe that a person can demonstrate dynamic
faith without having any good works. In
verse 21 of the KJV it reads as follows, “Was not Abraham our father justified by works,
when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?” Strongs has this to say
about the word justified, “1) to render righteous or such he ought to be 2) to
show, exhibit, evince, one to be righteous, such as he is and wishes himself to
be considered
3) to declare, pronounce, one to be just, righteous, or
such as he ought to be.” The NIV uses
the phrase, “considered righteous” instead of “justified by works.” The example that James is using here is the
offering up of Isaac as a burnt offering which occurred many years after the
conversion of Abraham, which James mentions in verse 23, which is a quote from
Genesis 15:6. James is showing that
Abraham’s conversion was true and that the demonstration of it was his
willingness to offer up Isaac believing that God would raise him from the dead,
as the author of Hebrews tell us. His
faith was a dynamic faith that affected his whole person as seen in verse 22
where James says that his faith and his actions were working together. Paul speaks of this in Ephesians 2:8-10, “8
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from
yourselves, it is the gift of God—9 not by works, so that no-one can boast.10
For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works,
which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
(NIV)
The next
example given by James is Rahab, and at first glance one might wonder what
these two people have in common, for one being a person whom God called to be
the father of the nation of Israel and the other a person who was a harlot
living in a nation where they were enemies of God’s people, Israel. Rahab must have been privileged too much
information because of the kind of person that she was. What she did was believe that God was indeed
the One who had caused the defeat of Egypt through the ten miracles He
did. She believed this and when the
spies came into her city she acted upon this faith in God and she was saved
along with her family from the destruction of their city. Rahab believed what she heard about God and
put her faith into action and she can be seen in the genealogy of Jesus Christ.
James
concludes this section and chapter with verse 26 which says that just as the
body without the spirit is dead so faith without works is dead. When a person is born physically they are
dead spiritually and must be, as Jesus said to Nicodemus that we must be “born
again,” or born from above in order to have life, (1 John 5:12 “He that hath
the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.”) Once a person is born from above and has new
life in Jesus Christ then through his faith in Christ he will produce good
works. Jesus also spoke about this in
John 15:5, "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me
and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”
Spiritual meaning for my life
today: This is probably the
most controversial section in the book of James and it does seem to me that the
Lord has shown me more about this in the way that James intended his readers to
understand it. In order for these things
to be true in my life I need to continue to keep my life clean and available to
be used of by the Lord. As James says in
verse 26b “faith without works is dead.”
The Word of God has been refreshing to me and also it has
been challenging to my heart.
My
Steps of Faith Today: I
want to handle the trial that is going on at our Church in a godly way and not
fall into any temptation that may arise because of this trial.
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