Thursday, March 31, 2011

Faith

First: I'm writing this blog to the smell of coffee cake, which will be amazing when it's done.
Second: it's been a long time since I've come across something super good to write down (because I haven't had as many great quiet times as I did in Oregon?).

So, faith! I was at a girl's bible study tonight and we were reading in James 2:14-26, specifically how faith without works is dead. There was some debate over the writings of Paul compared to the writings of James, and I looked it up. Apparently Martin Luther King Jr. disliked the book of James and didn't want it included in the Bible because its message of works and faith didn't quite seem to line up with the rest of the Bible. The girls in the Bible study spent a long time trying to figure out the differences and/or similarities between the two views, but we came up with a really great working definition for faith and how works tie into that.

Ephesians 2:8-9 says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, and not of works, lest anyone should boast." The Bible makes it very clear that because Jesus died for us and, being God, was able to conquer both death and sin. All we have to do in order to receive that gift of salvation is to have faith that He did everything the Bible claims and that He can and will save us. More on this in a little bit.

That's pretty much where Paul stood on the issue of works vs. faith. But you see in James 2 that "as the body without the spirit is dead, so also is faith without works." This seems to imply that our works actually count towards something spiritual.

What? How can those two ideals exist together in the Bible, which cannot contradict itself? We did a little searching, and I ended up referencing what my study Bible said, which was basically that the word for "justification" used in James was not the same justification used in other parts. The one in James is more like proof of something, whereas the one that is often used when talking about salvation is actually being justified by Christ's blood. In other words, the message in James is not that our works get us into heaven (because that's definitely opposite of what Ephesians says) but that our faith should produce works that show people around us that we are children of God.

Have I lost you yet?

James mentions Abraham, and I think that Abraham was one of the giants in faith mentioned in the Bible. Everyone has heard the story of how God told Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, and how Abraham had the faith to follow through, until at the last second, God sent him a ram instead. We all are in awe (at least, I am) of Abraham's faith that God would fulfill His promises about Isaac, but what if Abraham didn't follow through on his prayers to God? What if Abraham just said, "I'm going to sacrifice my son to You," and then backed out, or just didn't listen to the Lord's voice? He may have claimed to have the faith, but if he didn't act on it, then it's a moot point, isn't it? This is the core of James' message: if you have so-called faith in God, then what follows naturally are works that prove it.

Hillary gave a really awesome example of this: if you've got a boyfriend/girlfriend who claimed to love you with all their heart, but never called, never did anything nice for you, always flirted with other people, what would your logical conclusion be? That they never actually loved you. So we can pay God as much lip service as we want, just praise Him and tell people how faithful He's been (by the way, there's nothing wrong at all with praising God), but until we start acting out our faith (check out the fruit of the Spirit), nothing happens. No one around us can tell that we have faith and no lives are touched by our faith. James is arguing that faith without works is not even living, because it is nonexistent. This is not to say that doing good works automatically give you faith, though, or that they will pave your way to heaven. Faith is the key word here.

Another really cool aspect of faith is that it's a kind of action. When we're first saved, it's our faith in Jesus that gets us there, but it's the act of praying and tangibly giving our lives to Him that proves our sincerity. The Bible says that he who confesses with his mouth that Jesus is Lord will be saved. There are plenty of people out there who believe that God exists - even the demons believe, it says in James -  but if there is no acting on that belief, that faith, then nothing happens.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen, and it is our faith in Jesus that saves us. That first bit of faith proves to us that Jesus is true to his word, and boosts our faith a little bit more, so that when we pray through our next trial, we have a foundation of trust with God, trust that He will answer our prayers. When He does, our faith jumps a little higher, filling that foundation and making it stronger so that it can overflow to the next situation that requires it, and so on. It's this beautiful, never-ending cycle.

God bless!