How do you reveal your faith?

James, the halfbrother of Jesus, wrote the book of the New Testament that bears his name. The book includes some very straightforward instructions for living the Christian life and for revealing our faith to a watching world and to one another. He spent the first chapter giving instructions for perseverance in the face of adversity. In the second chapter, he spent the first thirteen verses warning against showing partiality in the church based on what you think people might be able to do for you. That brings us to the next thirteen verses in which James calls on his readers/hearers to reveal their faith to others through the works that faith produces.

James was concerned that those to whom he wrote would hold on to a faith that changed nothing but their speech or fleeting thoughts. He told them first that a faith that does not produce works is useless or good for nothing. What does it mean that faith without works is useless? What does it mean to be of use? It means that it serves no purpose in the Kingdom. It adds no value to a bad situation, or a good one either. This type of faith is not a saving faith because the socalled changes make no difference in the lives of those who claim to have it. That person might say the right things, but those words fall to the ground because they are not matched with actions that actually help anyone.

So, there is a useless faith that accomplishes nothing, but there is also a dead faith that cannot save a person. This dead faith, according to James, has no signs of life. To make a worldly analogy, when an EMS worker arrives on the scene of an accident or emergency, their first priority is to ascertain if the patient is alive or dead. If they have no pulse, no breath sounds, no reaction to stimulus, and are growing cold, they are not alive. The job of the EMS worker changes if the patient is already dead. While it is not exactly the same, the parallels with the Christian faith are similar.

Someone may say they have become a Christian, but have no desire to pray to or hear from God. They do not read their Bible. They do not attend church with other believers. Nothing in their life is different because of the faith they claim to have. They have not refused anything because of that claimed faith and they have not joined in anything because of it, either. They are not convicted of sin. They are not corrected by the Father. While none of this may be true, we often want to affirm that this person’s faith is a saving faith. Dead things can’t do anything. They have no life, no locomotion, and no lasting impact for anyone. They are dead.

After laying out the types of faith (useless and dead) that are not helpful to the Kingdom and cannot save anyone, James describes a faith that is useful for the Kingdom and is full of life. A faith like this is seen through good works done to serve God by serving our fellow man. A faith that is verifiable is one that produces works. He described the hardest day of Abraham’s life, the near-sacrifice of his son Isaac, as the outward manifestation of the faith that was credited to Abraham as righteousness. He also described the faith of Rahab, the prostitute of Jericho who had enough faith to hide the spies Joshua sent to check the place out. She also had enough faith to stay in her house when Israel conquered Jericho so that they would all be spared.

So James presents a faith that others can see, that benefits others, and that issues forth from a commitment to God as living and active, useful and good for giving glory to God. If that is the definition of saving faith, what about you? Do you have this kind of faith? How would others describe your faith or would they?