Don’t Tremble with the Devil

James 2:18-20  KJV

¹⁸ 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.

¹⁹ Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.

²⁰ But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?

James does not give up on this topic very easily. And I’m glad he doesn’t. I think it’s important that we all take a hard look at what we are doing for the Lord and making sure that the words that come out of our mouths and the actions that we take glorify God at every turn. He has saved us from hell’s dark tomb so that we can walk in Heavenly places for eternity. The least we can do is give Him our lives and service for the time that we are on this earth.

I challenge you to tell me how you can show me your faith without some type of work associated with that demonstration. I’ve been pondering over this for about 2 days and I cannot think of a way that I can show you my faith without doing something. Now I can talk about my faith and that might get you inspired. On this blog and on my poetry blog I write about my faith and a lot of people are touched by it. But is that showing my faith without works? Isn’t the actual typing of that piece into the computer a work in essence? If I go to a church and preach isn’t my preaching a work?

You see an order for others to partake of the faith that we have they have to see it in action. They have to hear how it has affected us. Many need a physical demonstration like a healing or financial miracle in order to grow in faith towards Jesus Christ. They might believe that he’s someone special or a prophet of some kind.  They might even believe that he is the Son of God sent to redeem them from their sins. But without a demonstration of faith in their life what purpose do they have.

Verse 19 kind of puts it all in perspective. We can believe in God – that’s all well and good. We can believe in Jesus Christ and that He came in a lowly manger and that He died on a cross. And that’s all well and good that we believe that. But even the devil believes that. There’s actually no doubt in his mind that these things happened.  He probably believes it stronger than we do! The devil believes it and he trembles at the thought of the Son of God rising from the dead.

But the devil will not have any actions to demonstrate the belief that he has. In fact quite the opposite – he does everything he can to drive people away from their faith instead of drawing them closer to the Lord.  He does all he can to make us think we do not need works in our lives.  We can just accept Christ and go on our merry way, counting on the grace of God to cover everything.  He wants us to think we don’t need works because he knows that if we display works of faith, others will come to faith in Christ as well.  So he has worked hard to convince the church that works are not necessary.  Don’t fall for his lies!

Jesus told us that we are the light of the world and told us not to hide our light under a bushel, but let it shine for all to see so that God will be glorified.  He said we are the salt of the earth, and told us not to lose our savor.  How do we perform as these two things perform in our world?  By our works!  By those things we do that shine His light on others, or season their lives for the better.

Our response when we get saved is to start doing good works. Maybe it’s just little things, like taking care of the kids in church or cleaning the restrooms or vacuuming or dusting. Maybe it’s working in the nursery or leading a Sunday School class. Maybe it’s helping a homeless man. Whatever the task, if we listen close enough, we will know that God has something for us to do. Use your faith to accomplish those things so that others can see it.

 

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