Five hundred years ago, an event happened that challenged the biggest religious institution in the world… an event known as the Reformation Movement. Although it had been brewing for a couple centuries, Martin Luther is labeled as the father of the movement. What that movement did was expose many false teachings – one of which was the use of indulgences. It had been taught for a long time that your sins could be forgiven if you paid a certain amount of money to the church in restitution for your sins.
Obviously, anyone who has read the Bible would agree that monetary restitution wasn’t what God had in mind for the forgiveness of sins. So, that movement inspired many teachers to teach that you didn’t have to pay God (or a priest) for your sins – Jesus did that on the cross.
Colossians 2:8-12, “Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ. For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body. So, you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority. When you came to Christ, you were 'circumcised,' but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision—the cutting away of your sinful nature. For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with Him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead.”
While that must have been a refreshing bit of news to find out God was after your heart instead of your money, the big question arose, “Do I have to DO anything then?” From that, people began to engage in frequent debates between faith and works: what does God require? When we read the book of James, we discover that the debate between faith and works wasn’t new at all. People have constantly tried to find out what God actually wants from us.
James addresses something that Jesus had shown us throughout His entire ministry. James 2:18, “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.” This was said in the middle of his point: “Faith without works is dead!”
Perhaps the real issue to be investigated should be, “What’s my motive behind my actions?” It seems that many of Jesus’ teachings hinge upon the motive of the participant. So, what’s your motive in helping people or not helping people? What’s your motive in attending worship or not attending worship? As James says in James 4:3, we don’t obtain what we’re looking for because of our selfish motives. Therefore, God wants us to be humble and merciful, compassionate and generous.
Faith isn’t faith if there are no actions associated with faith. In part because having faith in God means I’m following him, doing what he says (James 1:22; John 14:15). That’s true for all of us, even the people mentioned all throughout Scripture that had to trust in God to help them through the next step (Hebrews 11). How about us? Has our life helped the world to see that we have faith in God by “our good deeds” (Matthew 5:16, 1 Peter 2:12)?
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