Chapter Two- James

I recieved a few points from this chapter but not as much as some of them.

Favoritism  (James 2-1:13) 

In the first part about favoritism I found that God wants us to be merciful not judgmental.

"Mercy trumphs over judgment."

I find favoirtism a pretty big but sneaky trap to people, not just Christians. We do not always see it as harmful or bad. We've probably all had; favorite teachers, favorite friends, that sibling or parent you like just a little bit more. Esp. as kids. You see it all the time. I think its only more noticable in kids though, because they express it. We tend to hid it or not make it the centre of something, but the fact is;

"If you only break part of the law, you broke all of it."

James 2:10

So even though we may not express it, act apon it, or mention it... it still is not very cool.

When I focused in on favoritism and thought of my flaws on this topic, I was shocked. Ya, as a child my parents would say its not good to pick favorites or you should not say that you do not like that person as much. I never thought it could cause harm. I can now look at favoritism with a different perspective and think that, its one of those little sins, that most everyone does, but a sin is a sin.

I want to be merciful, and love people the way Jesus loves us. God does not love one of us more or less no matter what we do, so why should I? I think that this will be something that needs a lot of prayer and reflection on because it can easily bite us in the butt! But nothing is impossible, not even the sneakest of the sneaks, so lets work together and be fair and equal to others! Amen?

Now, 

Faith & Deeds (James 2:14-26)

Lets ask ourselves this; 

"What good is it brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? 

and can such faith save him?" 

James 2:14



Can you imangine if we thought that faith was all we needed, that we never had to do any work to recieve God's gift? That we thought just faith and nothing else saved us?

What a crazy realization it would be when we found out when it was too late.

I personally would have been mortified. I would have been so disappointed in myself for living and believing that faith was all it takes in life. That just goes to show you how important it is to read the Bible and get notified ahead of time!

In the Bible it gives us lots of reassurane that faith alone is dead.

In James it says;

"Faith not accompained by action is DEAD!"

James 2:17

"You see that a person is justified by what he does and NOT by faith alone."

James 2:24

And again,  

"Faith without deed is dead."

James 2:26

That is three times in nine verses where it mentions it. Pretty sure that is what you call a good warning!

So, now that I know how important doing deeds with faith is in my spiritual journey it makes me even that more excited to go and do the deeds God has called me to do.

You in?