God's Story Is Our Story: From Acts to New CreationSample

The book of James is one of the more convicting books of the Bible to read. It's easy to say that we have faith, but James tells us that there is a false faith, one that is not a living and true faith. Much of the letter is showing us what are the signs of life, the signs of a true faith. The list is challenging: not showing partiality to those who can benefit you, controlling the words that come out of our mouths, not loving the things of this world more than we love God, remaining steadfast through suffering, caring for those at risk in our society, and a consistency between our lives and what we say we believe. Even though we might see some of these virtues and actions in our life, it's easy to see ways in which we still fall short.

In his letter, though, James does tell us what we should do when we see how far we still have to go. He says to humble ourselves before God and draw near to him. One of the signs of spiritual life is realizing we fall short, but also believing that God is a gracious God who is glad to forgive those who turn to him for mercy.

This tension between the need to show signs of a true faith and to admit the ways we fall short of that is a hard one to live in. For some of us, we might say with Mark Twain, "It's my job to sin, and it's God's job to forgive." We don't want to change the way we live, but we do want God to forgive us. James challenges us to ask ourselves whether we truly do have faith. For others of us, we might be so burdened by the ways we fall short, we doubt that God can truly be gracious to us. James challenges us to draw near to God and to rest in his grace. Faith, to James, is wanting God to change us by his grace. Are we willing to say that?