I said yesterday that there is nothing preventing you from living a blessed life in Christ. The only reason why you would not receive this blessing is if you were not willing to receive it. I also pointed out that faith is us positioning ourselves to receive from God. When Abraham left his father’s household to go to the promised land, he was not, by this move, earning the promise that was made to him. He was merely positioning himself to receive it. The prodigal son of Jesus’ well-known parable (Luke 15:11ff) did not earn the right to be restored and blessed by his father by making the long journey home. He had to make this long journey, however, to receive his father’s forgiveness and be restored. My house is not connected to a town water source, so we have water tanks and receive our water, free, from the sky. But if I do not clean out my blocked gutters, the water simply won’t get to my tanks. Cleaning my gutters does not earn me the rainwater. It simply allows me to receive the free rainwater. This is the point that James is making in his letter, when by seeming contrast with Paul’s teaching in Galatians he says, “A person is considered righteous by what they do and not by ‘faith’ alone”. When he uses the word ‘faith’ here, James is thinking of the minimal definition prevalent in Greek philosophy: merely believing that something is true. But true biblical faith is more than this, as he says, “Faith, by itself, if not accompanied by action is dead”.
What is it that God is calling you to do to receive what he wants to freely give you?
Read James 2:14-26
