Faith and Works

I have recently put some time into reading James and this is the section I have been studying:

¹⁴What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? ¹⁵Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. ¹⁶If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? ¹⁷In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

¹⁸But someone will say, "You have faith; I have deeds."
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.

¹⁹You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

²⁰You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless^"? ²¹Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? ²²You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. ²³And the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,^" and he was called God's friend. ²⁴You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.

²⁵In 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? ²⁶As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

Have you ever caught yourself thinking,"As long as I go to church, tithe and help the homeless God will let me into Heaven." None of these things are inherently wrong to do and are actually very righteous things to strive to consistently accomplish. While good deeds can be seen by those around you and may lead them to God their purpose is much more than to impress the fickle hearts of men but to be living sacrifices to the Creator and our Savior.


As James states faith without works is dead and the reverse is also true. Blasphemous celebrities give to the poor children in Africa, Colombian drug lords give tithe, politicians can visit widows and orphans but you can't earn, buy, or steal the eternal salvation that God wants to freely bestow on you. Imagine if an Albanian woman only stopped at having great faith in her God and never went out and did as Jesus commanded all believers to do, many children in Calcutta would have never been saved by the person they knew as Mother Teresa. She wasn't great for what she did but for who she did it for. James knew that no one could come to the Father without accepting his Son and you can't accept his Son if you are too concerned with trying to do the "Christian" thing to do.

They go together hand-in-hand and can never truly be seperated.