18 But someone will say, "You have faith and I have works." Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.
19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe--and shudder!
20 Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless?
21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar?
22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works;
23 and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness"--and he was called a friend of God.
When I was a sophomore in High School I knew a missionary named Scott. He was a good man. He talked to me one year about this camp he was working at in Maine. He told me all about this camp and talked about how I should come up and work there with him next summer… they always need counselors… so that summer I packed my bags and headed up as a counselor. Throughout the training week Scott started to notice that when he was having trouble coming up with something for the group to do I would usually come up with a plan. He took note of that and started talking to me about how he felt like I could be a good leader and that he thought that I would do good working with teens. I was only a teenager myself, but I had already heard this from my Youth Pastor and a few others… my Youth Pastor actually went so far as to buy me a book about leadership and get together with me regularly and talk about leadership… But Scott did something different.. he said “here you go, you are in charge of this game time”, then he said “you are in charge of this hour every day”, then he said “Jeff you're gonna be in charge of the whole program”.
So in one area of my life I had guys saying “I have Faith in you that you can lead” and they would give me a book about leading… but then I had this guy saying “I have faith in you that you can lead” and he starts giving me chances to lead… he showed me his faith BY his actions… I knew that this guy believed in me because He trusted me with important stuff.
It’s the same way with God. Sure people believe in him, lots of people do… and they even want to have faith in him, but do they still want to live their lives the way that they want to or are they able to show God their faith by actually choosing to live for Him.
Now I grew up in a church that taught that you need to do good works to get to heaven, that is not true - You need to have Faith in God to get to heaven, and you need to use that Faith to have a personal relationship with Jesus, that is what gets you to heaven - not the good things that you do… however, we can't read your heart like God can… so when we see you doing things that show you are living for God, then we can see your “faith” by your “works”.
Answer This:
1. What are some works that show your faith ?
2. Why is it important for you to show your faith with your works?
3. “Show me your faith apart from your _________, and I will show you my faith by my ___________”
take a minute and journal about this.
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Written by Jeff
When I went to Ecuador this past summer, I realized I was showing my faith on several occasions. In every town we were in, I was able the talk to at least on person for 10-15 minutes because I understood Spanish. It was real nice because our conversations went further than what's your name. I was able to tell them a little of my story. In the town when I shared my testimony, there was a women who came up to and it turns out that her daughter was going through some of the things I went through. So I was able to show my faith to her by telling her how I overcame my demons.
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