“James”
(Please read the passage before, or after, reading the devotion.)
Reminder: There will be NO daily devotion tomorrow, Sunday. Hopefully most of you will join us through our Live stream Worship and listen to God yourselves. Come with open hearts!
James is not obsessed with the concept of trying to work ourselves into God’s favor and heaven. He truly believed that Jesus was indeed the only way to having a relationship with God (2:1b). And that only by faith in His grace (that undeserved love given without limit or condition) could God transform our lives. But he keeps reminding us of this natural progression: God’s grace -> our faith -> transformed living -> works of love (just as Jesus worked in love) [cf. How Paul says it in Ephesians 2:8-10 and Philippians 2:12b-13] How can we separate faith from its outworking? There is humor and irony in inferring that surely we were better than demons! Demons also believed in the existence of God (a strange kind of “faith”), but their response is terror. In contrast, shouldn’t our faith response to God and His love be one that shows what transformed lives do – actually helping those in dire need, and not being superficially religious?
Loving God, forgive me for the way I separate my relationship with you from the relationship you want me to have with the people of the world. It is so easy to form a “checklist” of what it means to be a follower of Christ, and keep checking each thing off: prayer, bible reading, church worship, charity, giving to the church… But that’s not what you want of me, do you Lord? Because sometimes that seems almost like the demons that live in terror because of the power you yield. I now realize that the reason you transform me is to live like Jesus did, where faith and love (showed in works) are so fused together, they cannot be separated. Just like you and me. Amen.
