Today’s reading is James 2

Tom writes:

This passage is laced with the spicy Jewish flavour we saw in chapter one. Faithful Jews always knew that they must be defined by their God. Religion was not a segment of the grapefruit of life; sectioned off to certain practices on certain days. No, religion was like the chocolate in a chocolate milkshake; mixed into every aspect of every day. If a Jew looked at one small part of a person’s life and saw no evidence of faith in that moment, it would be like them taking a sip of a chocolate milkshake and not tasting chocolate; “have you served me the right drink?!” they would cry. This is what James is talking about when he calls faith without works “dead”. James knows that if you have any of God’s grace in any of your life then it will seep into every part of your life. Or at least it should, if it is genuinely God’s grace. James wants everyone to know that the power that reverberated in his little brother really changes people. James wants God’s grace to have full effect in our lives; to make us perfect and complete in him, doing all God wants us to do. Here is what this means for us; we let God make us people who every waking hour of every day clearly live out of the reservoir of God’s grace. Forget the attending of church services or reading of the bible which only happen in certain moments of a week.

Think about the stuff you do all the time; how you treat people, how you use your words, how you make your plans. If we want our milkshake to taste of chocolate then these are the areas where we let God’s grace go to work. And that is where “faith” comes in. Faith - for James - is cooperation with God’s efforts in our lives. Faith is saying “yes” to God making us like him. If we let God have his way in us then we naturally start to treat all people well, to recoil from cursing others or making vain boasts. Real faith means something inside of us shifts and becomes like God, even when we don’t know it is happening; even beyond anything we could achieve by our own efforts. And so, this Jewish flavour actually expands the sense of adventure we have in our faith. We realise God wants to redeem all of us; to make us clean and pure and beautiful and joyful in every single droplet of our lives. That is what it means to be rich in faith and a real heir of the kingdom.

Question for reflection

What are you letting God change in you at the moment?

James 2 - Wednesday 2nd October