Actionless Faith Is Dead

I was reading ‘Understanding The Endtimes’ by RBC Ministries and I came across this:

“…some people who specialize in Bible prophecy show little real devotion to Christ and rarely try to lead anyone to the Lord Jesus. Their minds are full of information but their hearts are empty. They aren’t gaining anything of spiritual value from their searching of the Scriptures.” Pages 69-70

We should study Scripture not focusing on any one part but on the whole book knowing the reason for the Bible is to share God's plan for our salvation. Sadly, I know those who studied Scripture and dug in deep trying to understand it and in so doing have lost their faith and hence forth their salvation. They dug into studying but were not active in applying it to their lives and allowing the Holy Spirit to come alive in them. They focused on only one part of Scripture and didn't see the whole picture and didn't allow the Holy Spirit to conform them.

Satan knows Scripture very well, so well that he quoted it to Jesus and will use it to slip us up in our walk. The traps he lays for us are the ones that we cannot see like digging in trying to make human sense of the Bible and the prophecies that lie within only to walk away with more questions and confusion or with an empty, cold heart. 

I am saddened to the point of tears and crying out to my Father in intercession for the lost and the hard hearts, for those I love deeply by a love that is fueled by the passion of Holy Spirit and a deep desire to see the sinner set free from the chains of slavery and the jaws of Satan. 

James 2:14-26 NIV

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”

Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.

In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

 

James sums it up well in v 2  In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

Standing in the gap and praying for those who have walked away and those who just don't believe.

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