The Bible is more than just words for your life. It’s transformation for your life when we apply it. It’s all useful and if you don’t love it when you don’t like it, that says you don’t love the Bible, you love you.

All of James is centered on a faith that works and moves beyond words to action. James challenges us to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. The effects of faith are joy, humility and action.

James 2:1 NLT My dear brothers and sisters, how can you claim to have faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ if you favor some people over others?

Our faith is only as strong as the thing we hold onto.

James 2:9 NLT But if you favor some people over others, you are committing a sin. You are guilty of breaking the law.

If we treat someone different by their appearance we are sinning. This is inconsistent with God’s nature and it is inconsiderate of others. We don’t determine someone’s worth by how they look. This is incompatible with the law of love.

We are not better than anyone. We are all equal. We never lose our value. No matter what happens.

James 2:8-13 MSG You do well when you complete the Royal Rule of the Scriptures: “Love others as you love yourself.” But if you play up to these so-called important people, you go against the Rule and stand convicted by it. You can’t pick and choose in these things, specializing in keeping one or two things in God’s law and ignoring others. The same God who said, “Don’t commit adultery,” also said, “Don’t murder.” If you don’t commit adultery but go ahead and murder, do you think your non-adultery will cancel out your murder? No, you’re a murderer, period. Talk and act like a person expecting to be judged by the Rule that sets us free. For if you refuse to act kindly, you can hardly expect to be treated kindly. Kind mercy wins over harsh judgment every time.

We are all different, but we are all in one place serving the only God. Our mandate is to not be divided but to be united. The house of God should be the most integrated space. Where we have faith that works and moves beyond words to action. When we have faith that is not moved to action we wear Christian as a label and a title, but the evidence of our Christianity does not show up.

James 2:14-17 MSG Dear friends, do you think you’ll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, “Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!” and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup—where does that get you? Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?

What good is it to have the ability to help someone but we don’t. We cannot claim to have faith and then have no action. That is dead faith. What good is our faith if it is not visible in the way we work, love, and serve?

James 2:19-20 MSG Do I hear you professing to believe in the one and only God, but then observe you complacently sitting back as if you had done something wonderful? That’s just great. Demons do that, but what good does it do them? Use your heads! Do you suppose for a minute that you can cut faith and works in two and not end up with a corpse on your hands?

Even demons have faith. They believe and know who God is. Demons even recognize God/ Christ first. A man with a demon in him recognized Christ first and said what are you doing here.
Everyone that comes to church is not expecting Christ.

Mark 1:23-24 MSG Suddenly, while still in the meeting place, he was interrupted by a man who was deeply disturbed and yelling out, “What business do you have here with us, Jesus? Nazarene! I know what you’re up to! You’re the Holy One of God, and you’ve come to destroy us!”

Believing is not good enough because even the demons believe. However, their belief does not lead to obedience or surrender. Many of us are living with demonic faith. Many of us are living in a faith that acknowledges His existence but does not bring us to transformation in our lives.

James 2:24 NLT So you see, we are shown to be right with God by what we do, not by faith alone.

Now, some of you might be thinking that we are saved by faith not by works. You are correct. Paul says we are justified by faith and James says we are justified by works. This does not mean that one excludes or necessarily includes the other, but they are both just as important.

John 3:16 NLT “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

Romans 3:28 NLT So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law.

Ephesians 2:9 NLT Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.

These may seem like contradictions, but there are no contradictions in the Bible. Paul is talking about salvation. James is talking about sanctification. Salvation and Sanctification require different things from us.

Galatians 2:16-22 NIV know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified. “But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we Jews find ourselves also among the sinners, doesn’t that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a lawbreaker.
“For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”
We are saved by grace through faith and our faith gives way to good works. We trust Him.
God doesn’t need our good works. People do. He uses our good works for His people and His glory. The effect of a gospel led life is good works.

Galatians 5:22-23 MSG But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

Matthew 5:14-16 MSG “Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.

Our good works are exposed by the light. Our good works do not get us to heaven. We cannot manufacture our way to heaven. Good works are produced from the inside out. Thus, you cannot be saved and not do good works.

Romans 12:1-2 MSG So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Divine faith is loving God and loving people. The greatest commandment is to love God and to love others as we love ourselves. When we are living out our faith, we show love. We love so much we trust the action.

What does Divine faith look like in our life? It looks like faith that is evident in our identity, our kindness, our forgiveness, our every aspect of life. Faith without works is dead, but Faith with works is transformation. This is when we see God move in ways we could never imagine.

James 2:26 NIV As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.