He Leads the Way to the Scattered Tribes 2
2
TREAT ALL PEOPLE IN THE SAME WAY
1My sacred family members, as you trust in our bright and shining Honored Chief, Creator Sets Free (Jesus) the Chosen One, do not treat one person better than another. 2Let us say someone comes into your sacred gathering wearing fine clothes and costly jewelry, and some poor person comes in dressed in rags. 3Then you give more honor to the one wearing fine clothes, saying, “Come, sit here in this honored place,” but you say to the one dressed in rags, “Go, stand over there,” or, “Sit here on the floor where people lay their feet.” 4If you treat people in this way, have you not decided that some among you are better than others and acted like crooked council members with bad hearts?
5Hear me, my much-loved sacred family members! Did not the Great Spirit choose the ones the world looks down on as poor to be rich in trusting and sharers together in the good road that Creator has promised to those who love him? 6Why would you show no respect for the poor? Is it not the rich who drag you down and bring you before their own corrupt councils? 7Are they not the ones who speak evil against the Honorable Name spoken over you?
THE TRUE MEANING AND PURPOSE OF THE LAW
8If you “love your fellow human beings in the same way you love yourselves,” as it says in our Sacred Teachings,#2:8 Leviticus 19:18; Romans 13:10 you are doing well, for you are walking in the true meaning and purpose of the law of our Honored Chief. 9But if you treat one person better than another, you are walking in broken ways and guilty of not following our Sacred Teachings. 10For whoever does everything our tribal law requires yet fails in one thing is guilty of breaking all of it. 11The one who told us to be faithful in marriage#2:11 Exodus 20:13 also told us not to take the life of another.#2:11 Deuteronomy 5:17 If you are faithful in marriage but take away the life of another, you have become one who fails to keep the law.
12In all that you say or do, remember that it is the Chosen One’s law of freedom that Creator will use to decide for or against you. 13When the Great Spirit decides, no mercy will be shown to those who have not shown mercy. On the other hand, the ones who have shown mercy will have mercy shown to them. So then, mercy wins the victory over judgment.
HARMONY BETWEEN FAITH AND DEEDS
14What good is it, my sacred family members, if a man says “I have faith,” but has no deeds to show for it? Can that kind of “faith” set him free and make him whole? 15If a family member or any human being has no clothes to wear or no food to eat, 16and you say, “Go in peace, stay warm, and eat well,” but fail to give what is needed, what good have you done?
17In the same way, without deeds, faith by itself is dead. 18But someone will say, “Faith is what is needed,” while another says, “Good deeds are what is needed.”#2:18 Lit. You have faith and I have good deeds I say that both are needed. You show me your faith without good deeds, and I will show you my faith by the good deeds I have done.
EXAMPLES OF FAITH AND GOOD DEEDS
19You believe there is only one Great Spirit. Good! But evil spirits also believe and tremble with fear! 20Are you the kind of shallow person who needs to be shown over and over again that faith without good deeds has no worth? 21So I ask you, was not Father of Many Nations (Abraham) shown to be in good standing when he put his son He Made Us Laugh (Isaac) on the sacred altar as a sacrifice?
Long ago the Great Spirit promised Father of Many Nations (Abraham) a son even though he was too old to father a child. For many winters he kept trusting that the promise would come true. Finally, his promised son was born, the son whom the Great Spirit said his descendants would come from and through whom all nations would be blessed. But Creator told Father of Many Nations (Abraham) to take his son and offer him as a sacrifice. His trust in the Great Spirit was so strong that he believed even if he sacrificed his only son Creator would bring him back from death. So he began to do what he was told, but the Great Spirit sent a spirit-messenger to stop him just as he was about to sacrifice his son. # 2:21 See Genesis 22:1-15.
22It is clear to see that his faith was in harmony with what he did. His faith was completed by his deeds. 23This gives full meaning to the Sacred Teaching that says, “Father of Many Nations (Abraham) trusted the Great Spirit, and this gave him good standing in Creator’s eyes.” It was for this reason that he was called the friend of the Great Spirit.
24So you can see that human beings do not have good standing only by trusting but also by what they do.
25It was the same for Boastful Woman (Rahab), one who traded her body for possessions. Did she not do what was right in Creator’s eyes when she took in the spies that were sent from our tribes and helped them escape by sending them out another way?
26In the same way that a body has no life without the spirit, so faith has no life without deeds.
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He Leads the Way to the Scattered Tribes 2: FNVNT
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