HE IS ABLE!
Friday's Devotion (6-15-07)
"Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works." James 2:17-18 (KJV)
Have you ever said that you're going to start going to work or school and do better there? You're going to get a raise at work, or you're going to start getting straight A's at school? You have the faith in yourself that you can do these things, but yet you don't do it? It's all just talk until you put that faith into action, right? It means nothing until you put it into action, right? Yeah, you know where I'm going with this. Our faith in Jesus Christ is the same way, until we put our knowledge and faith in Christ to work then it's a dead faith, it's useless, it means nothing! If you love Jesus and have faith in Him, then you will obey His Word through faith. Obeying His Word isn't as easy as it sounds either, there are a lot of "dos," and, "don't dos," in His Word. Do this, but don't do that. His Word is A LOT MORE than that, but if we love Him and have faith in Him, then we'll obey all that (Well, I should say we'll do our best to obey and we'll pray for strength to obey.) If you need money and you supposedly have faith in Christ, then why would you go rob a bank? If you want to spread the gospel then why would you sit at home and watch television instead of going out to spread the gospel? If you want to quit smoking and you pray about it, why would you buy another pack of smokes "just incase?" Faith is more than a belief, faith is an action! There are two parts to faith: Belief and action. First you believe, and then you act on that belief. Look at how we get salvation, first we believe with our hearts and then we confess with our mouths that Jesus Christ is the Lord. In that case we get the belief, and then the act would be confession with our mouths. That's just for that case, every case has a different action that needs to be done. If I was crippled and I was believing God for my healing then the action that I would need to take would be standing up and walking. In the case of me being crippled, if I just said, "I believe God will heal me," without an attempt to stand up then my faith would be a dead faith. We need a living faith, and that comes by action. When something doesn't move, it's either asleep or dead.
Some of us have dead faith, while the faith of others is alive and well. If you have any reason to believe that your faith is dead, then we can do what one man did in the Bible and ask the Lord to heal our unbelief. Give us faith Lord! There's nothing wrong with asking that, it's better than letting our faith stay dead. I believe that we all have times where we need to ask for faith. Sometimes things get so hard that there's nothing you'd rather do than believe the promises of God, but you just can't... All you see is the bad, and you sure could use more faith to get you through. Just ask for it, and the Lord will help you in that area. HE IS ABLE!
Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this message and for all things. Please forgive us of all our sins as we forgive all those who've sinned against us. Please give us more faith, and don't let the faith we have be dead faith. Let our faith be backed with action, and let that action be backed with strength from you. In Jesus name. A-men!
God bless