Day 3201 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

James 2:17 NIV

We who have known death don't mind staying.

Because anything to which we’ve grown accustomed is just that, it’s comfortable. It’s a normal already known. And that we already know it means we’ve nothing left we need to learn and this leaves the way of life lived in the death that is sin simple as it can be so easily done without demand or expectation which means it carries no risk or requirement.

To stay dead takes no effort or change as that’s right where sin has brought us meaning that we’re already there.

The glaring problem with that you see, is that Christ came that we might have life, life to the full wrapped and completed within a sort of fulfillment found only inside the fullness of a living faith. A breathing faith. A faith so dire and dear that we'd rather die than let it grow cold and stale, fragile or frail. No, He died for us to have the chance to live by faith.

But here’s the thing, if our faith isn't doing anything in us that's causing us to do anything ourselves then one might find that their faith is merely a figment of some distant hope that exists too far from their comfort to make much of a difference up close.

We tackled the whole faith by works conundrum a little yesterday, though I must say, since this one's been on my mind for a long time now, yesterday's post is one in a growing list of the many that have felt insignificant at best. I fear that I feel that I fell well short in yesterday because there’s just so much to say in regard to all this that I just can't help but believe that I bunted and could have done better.

So here we are, day two in what I hope will further resolve this ridiculous notion that our faith isn't a matter meant to set us in motion.

It seems to me that a majority of what the majority know and understand and widely accept about faith is little more than material made for manuscripts. It's ideas, theories, hopeful assumptions that do little more than simply keep the little hope we still hold barely alive for a little while longer. It's songs and sermons that sound sweet but leave us still seated and not sweating.

Indeed, I fear that to most of us faith is a concept meant for only considering, not at all one aimed to inspire a fight against the chaos.

You’ll hear some say to fight the good fight. What fight? Fight with what? Fight whom? When is this battle to begin? Where can the ground be found upon which we're to work in this waging of war? Is there a sign-up sheet being passed around, coming around upon which we can enroll and then better identify our role and responsibilities in regard to what we've not yet found reason to realize about the reality of serving His majesty?

Why can't it just stay feeble prayers hurried before meals and a couple songs lip-synced on Sundays?

That's the part we perused in yesterday's post. It's this obviously popular preference among people positioned for our protecting our laxity and levity inspired by laziness. As I said yesterday, we're by and large a people of pastimes and pit-stops and picnics, always begging or bartering for a bit of a break as if we'll break before we make our way to where we're trying to be if we're not constantly relieved along the way.

Yes, all but anything we do in life, everything we are anymore is done or planned or preferred so long and only as there is relief and a lack of ultimate requirement.

But while that may work in this world of drive-thru windows making our meals for us so we needn't learn to cook, self-driving cars that follow all the laws we used to feel free to break with lead feet, and a mainstream media making all our decisions for us so we can remain mindless, how dare we descend upon that same decision when it comes to our faith!

How dare we respond to Christ's gift with this grift as shown in our growing only in assumption of entitlement which shows only an utter lack of growth in our awareness of the sheer gravity of our salvation?

We ought to be yearning to be burning every bit, every bridge, every blaspheme that's been allowed to be a part of the parts and pieces of a misplaced life that He died to put back together. We should ache to find new ways in which to show the world what He's done for us and what that's still doing inside. Our lives should be surrendered in full back to the One who died for all we have left so that He could use us to now fish for all who are still lost.

Because while again, no we don't have to earn through works our salvation, what said salvation is doing in us is shown for others to see by what we're doing with it.

And so, if we're doing nothing with it, accomplishing nothing from it, achieving nothing because of it, then we should be asking ourselves what 'it' really is because if our faith isn't showing up in how we're living our lives by now living our lives so drastically differently than we lived them before, we might not have what we otherwise like to assume.

All of us love every bit of His mercy. We love the grace and stories of glory. We're every bit enthralled by this idea of eternity and peace unending held hopefully within. But the fullness of His eternal presence holds upon the horizon of our time in this world. It's a promise held in trust for those who trust so deeply in Him that they do, they speak, they breathe every moment left of this life begging for ways to help others see what we've found in Him now that we know what He did to find us.

My question then is what are we doing while we're still here aching to be there? Because that's the potential problem that I fear we all face far more closely than our complacency cares to consider.

Again, those who've known death as lived in life lost in sin don't mind staying there. We never mind staying where we already are. Don't mind settling for what we've already settled for. All of humanity is all about complacency because it's easy. Not moving asks nothing of us as we can all repeat what we've already done, already decided, already desired.

But again, He died that we might have a life that we now live to the full. But a full life is only lived inside a full faith that finds us a new and ever-renewing courage insistent upon not missing a moment for which we were made.

And that's one of the biggest points that is either overlooked or simply ignored by any and all who say or assume that there's nothing for us to do once we're saved. It's not about us doing something to be saved as Christ has done all there is to do to take care of that part. Our part is understanding that His gift was given for us to do something with it, not for it, with it.

What are we doing with this new life we've been given that we're now living in light of all He's done to make us right so that we can now rise to this occasion by proclaiming His Name across the nations among whom we're still walking, now that we know the power of being finally and fully awakened?

Friends, that we've been found and forgiven is amazing. It's a grace given in such undeserved manner that it means everything to everyone who dare embrace the humility needed to accept it. What He did for us on that cross is a cost too priceless and impressive for us to imagine. But it wasn't just for us.

It is a gift still given to those who happen to still not know just how badly they need it. And that's where you and I come in to do what He deserves we do in response to all He's done. Because He bought a faith that doesn't die, we better fight to keep it alive. And what better way to do just that than to work in faith, not for faith, but in faith as done in devotion to the One who made this difference we didn't know we always needed.

We're here to show the world that He makes all things new. We're here to share the hope, the healing, the happiness of a home held in Heaven for all who let go of this rental and the carefree way of life it imagines. Each of us share the road, the workplace, the grocery store with people who might not know that they're known. Millions of people all around us are caught in this heartbreaking assumption that nobody sees them, nobody cares about them, nobody loves them.

But we claim to be among the few who know just how wrong they are to assume they're forgotten. And we claim this within the title by which we call ourselves. Christians are Christ's people called to fish for those who don't know what He's done for them. Yet. We talked about that little word a few days ago, yet. So many people don't know Him yet, don't know love yet, don't have hope. Yet.

That's why our works done from faith become worth doing despite our old preference for doing nothing. We can't do nothing anymore because the old is gone and He's made all things new. Time to do something new, something different, something period! It's time for us understand that we're here for a reason and that reason is about something more than just taking up space while we're waiting for Him to return.

Faith without action is dead. It's like an animal on the side of the road that someone has to come along and poke and prod to check for some sign of life. Why are we waiting for the world to check on us to see if our faith is still alive? We should be living testimonies, not missed opportunities. But that's exactly what we settle for whenever we settle for this idea that there's nothing at all for us to do now that we're saved simply because there was nothing we could do to be saved.

Friends, this isn't a gift meant to hold so tightly that nobody else can see it. You don't light a candle and put it under a basket. You let it shine. You carry it into the dark so that it helps those caught in the shadows see to find a way to something better than that. And if we truly know the ultimate source of a light that is undeniably and incomparably better than the darkness engulfing this world, how can we not let it shine?

Maybe it's through words spoken to someone who's not heard much about Jesus. Perhaps it's a couple hours serving meals to people who are homeless and hungry. Sharing our lunch with the kid who couldn't afford to bring his own. Even just listening to someone who's hurting get some of the pain off their chests so that their hearts can beat with a little less anguish. We can all do something, but for us to do anything demands we make a choice to move.

That is entirely what He came to do, to move us. From yesterday into today on into wherever we'll be tomorrow and whatever tomorrow holds. From the darkness we've known in the past into the light we see faintly up ahead. From being lost in lies to living in the truth. From assumption so weak we can only hope things go right to a confidence so certain that we live knowing how this all ends as shown in our willingness to rage toward that promise with the same abandon He showed on Calvary.

Friends, no, nothing is demanded of us in order to be saved. But our being saved isn't the end of the story but the beginning of our faith. What we do in and with that faith proves just how real it really is. If we do nothing, change nothing, say nothing, share nothing with our faith, from our faith, because of our faith, then what is our faith?

If it doesn't move us, then it's apparently too insignificant to actually matter to us.

This world doesn't need a church quietly waiting for their promise to hurry up and get here. This place and the people in it need a church that is so crazy about mercy that we show it in every way we can. Speaking, teaching, listening, loving. Do something, because if we don't, then like James says here, our faith is dead.

And the very thought of a dead faith sounds as unacceptable as anything I've ever heard of. Because again, Jesus didn't die so that our faith could eventually do the same. He died that we might have life, and the only thing to do with life is live it. Live your faith so that you know your faith is alive.

The alternative just isn't worth considering. Not if we truly believe in what this faith really means and if it really means as much as we claim to believe.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold