Imagine a good friend, who is a Christian, dies and the epitaph on his gravestone reads: “He was a man of great faith”. I don’t think he would have received such acclaim if his great faith had not propelled him into actions motivated by love towards those he met as he went about his life of faith.
In this passage James uses the examples of two Old Testament characters whose actions born of a faith in God turned them into amazing examples of personal sacrifice. Abraham had longed for a son for the whole of his life and God had told him that he would become the father of nations and his descendants would be as numerous as grains of sand. Abraham was prepared, however, to kill that son, on the command of God because he had faith that He would still fulfil His promise. Rahab hid the spies and helped them to escape even though both she and her family could have been killed, because she believed that the God she hardly knew would save her.
We cannot earn our salvation by what we do, however. Salvation is a gift of grace: entirely God’s work and not ours.
In Ephesians 2:8-9 we read, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, (it is) the gift of God; not as a result of works that no one should boast”.
When we turn away from the lives we have been living through an encounter with Jesus and His promise of eternal life, we begin to act out of the great love we have received and begin to love others into the life we have. The more we know we are loved, the more we will love. Love is our motivation and love is our goal.
Jesus summed up the rules of life as: Love God, love others, love yourselves.
Let us make our deeds the evidence of what we believe.
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A reflection for this evening:
Did I offer peace today? Did I bring a smile to someone’s face?
Did I use healing words? Did I let go of anger and resentment?
Did I forgive? Did I love?
“These are the real questions. I must trust that the little bit of love that I sow will bear many fruits, here in this world and the life to come”. (Henri Nouwen)