"None of this stuff matters until you do something with it!" This is the new title for my blog and it is a phrase that I have heard my entire life. My dad, Jim Freeman, a pastor, would use this phrase after every sermon he preached. It became second nature to me and a phrase that let me know that my dad was finally wrapping up his sermon, meaning I could go home soon (every pastors kid knows where I am coming from). It took me twenty years to finally understand what that phrase meant and how important it really is.
I was working at Trinity Youth Camp as a councelor earlier this summer and as a councelor I, along with my co-councelor, were in charge of a cabin of high schoolers for a week. Camp is always a fun time and God always brings change in the students lives, and even the staff's lives. Every morning after breakfast we would have a morning service and right after that we would split up into small groups and talk about the lessons we have heard. This was a time that I could really connect with my campers and share what God has laid on my heart. One of the days I was talking to them about the lesson and I felt like they really weren't grasping the whole application portion of the lesson, and I said something I hadn't heard in a while and certainly never from my mouth. I had one of those "woah I sound like my dad" moments when I said "none of this stuff matters until you do something with it". At the very moment those words came out of my mouth, I finally understood what my dad had been saying all those years. It's probably just because I am his son and I tend to have a habbit of tuning him out but it finally clicked in my head nonetheless. I finally realized the truth of that sentance and how we as Christians have to actually do something. We sit in these services, we hear sermon after sermon, and we have our personal devos but is that enough? Are we fulfilling our duty as Christians by listening but not doing?
“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder. You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 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. You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone. 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? As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.”
James 2:14-26 NIV
Christians in America today are so culturally absorbed and every Christian seems to have at least two seperate lives. Their is the church life, the life that only the members of your church see on Sundays; and then the life the world sees when you arent at church. Sadly the church has become so wrapped up in the number of people they can get to their services and how many people they can get to bow their heads at the end of the service and repeat the prayer, and boom they are saved. Great! Now what? The church isn't focused on maintaining these souls, they are just looking for another tally to mark to add to the "successfullness" of their church.
The passage in James clearly states that faith without works is pointless! James says "show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deed." The way that people see your faith and know that something has changed you from the inside out, is the deeds you do to prove that faith. By just stating I have faith in God but not living a life that depicts that at all, do you really have faith in God? That's what James is saying, and that's what our churches in America are afraid to say. James goes on to give examples of people have shown their faith in God by their actions. He talks about Abraham's amazing faith. Abraham was getting pretty old and still his wife Sara had not bore him a son. They both were under the impression that they were just too old to ever have a child, but God had a different plan for them. God promised them a son and Sara bore Isaac. This was a miracle and Abraham and Sara, obviously, cherished their son Isaac and thanked God for the blessing. God saw how much they loved their son and He wanted to see how much Faith Abraham really had in Him. God asked Abraham to go up to the alter and offer his one and only son, that he loved so much, as a sacrifice to the Lord. I have heard this story so many times and it still gets to me everytime I think about it. How could Abraham willingly give his son up like that but their is the difference between mine and Abrahams faith. Abraham was completely willing to kill his son on that alter but God saw his faith and stopped him from doing it.
Now doesn't that depict someone who really has faith in God? Someone who has been changed from the inside out and is living a life for God? And the way we clearly see that is by Abrahams ACTIONS. Abraham could have said "yeah I will do that for you God" but then if he never took Isaac up to the alter God would not have accepted that as faith, so how can we as Christians live these double lives? How can we say we have this faith and then not actually do anything to prove that love for God to the world. The answer is we can't and we better stop trying to do that! None of this stuff matters until you do something with it! You can listen to these words, you can read your bible, you can go to church and you can even say I have faith, and I follow God; but until you actually do it and live it, do you really have this faith? Christians it's time to wake up, it's time to be the difference, it's time to start living the way we SAY we believe. Until we do this, we just live a superficial, hypocritical, pointless life. None of this stuff matters until you do something with it! Now what? What will you do to LIVE a life pleasing to Christ?
