Real Devotional 39

JAMES 2:17-18 | ¹⁷ So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. ¹⁸ But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from works, and I by my works will show you faith.

Here in these verses, James implicitly identifies a third kind of belief. There is our public position, what we want others to think we believe. There is our private position, what we think we believe.

But there is also the actual beliefs that guide our behavior, the map that we live by. James knows that the first two forms of belief, public and private, may differ from the third form, our guide for action. This contradiction renders our public and private positions powerless, effectively making them null and void.

Do those distinctions make sense to you?

Does your faith form your mental map?

Tags: faith, sense