I once walked my Christian life with a checklist. Felt like when I checked all the boxes that would be enough to earn the grace of Jesus. I know some still live this way, and I would encourage you to stop. This entry isn’t about adding stuff to some check list to earn grace. We can never earn grace. We can never deserve Jesus’ love. We can only have faith in Jesus, and work to understand what that faith wants to do in our lives.
I say this because this entry can be taken to support such a checklist mentality, but it really doesn’t mean that. I’ve written a lot already about how much has been done through faith, and how much faith can do. It’s very easy to read all I’ve written, agree, but miss one of the most basic truths about faith. It can easily pass us by as we consider faith to be an inner condition of the heart. That’s not all it is. True faith is a call to action.
Stuff is done through faith. In order to do stuff we have to actually do stuff. When we have faith it drives us to actually become more like Christ, and do. James actually says this far better than I ever could in James 2:14-26 states:
“What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food and one of you says to them, ‘Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,’ but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith in itself, if it does not have works, it is dead. But someone will say, ‘You have faith, and I have works.’ Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe-and tremble! But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? And the scripture was fulfilled which says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ And he was called a friend of God. You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only. Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.”
James has always been one of my favorite books of the Bible because James doesn’t pull punches. He’s honest. Really consider what he wrote. What good is our faith if it does nothing? Is it even real? If our faith in the redeeming power of Jesus Christ doesn’t compel us to do something then our faith is nothing.
Don’t take this the wrong way. I’m not advocating this you have do a certain number of things to earn your way into heaven. I said it already. This isn’t about a check list. This is about faith, and true faith makes us anxious and ready to serve the Lord if we honestly believe in Him. This can mean many different things for different people. It can mean that you finally listen to the words of God, and stop sleeping with that girl you’re not married to. It could mean no longer ignoring your calling because you’re afraid God isn’t real, and going into the ministry. It can mean that you stop gossiping about others, and only allow positive words to come out of your mouth. Faith can transform us, and help us be more like Christ, act more like Christ, and do more like Christ. It can drive us to serve in our church, volunteer at a hospice, stop taking those drugs, write, work, try to bring others to Christ, endure persecution, stand up to evil, and do any number of things.
Each person is different, and faith can do different things through each person. Faith that is doing nothing is faith that does not exist. It is nothing, and nothing will come out of nothing. True faith does.
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