Is Your Faith Living And Active, Or Is It Compromising And Dead?

James 4:1-6

Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”? But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

• To compromise as a Christ follower is to take what He did as nothing more than a simple, minor event that has no significance to salvation or human history. We find this reality prevalent in the Western church. Many profess the name of Jesus or have the title of 'Christian', but have no fruit (actions) to prove any of it (James 2:14/26).

  
  

• The scary reality is that lately, we have had big names professing His name on a stage, but their lives have no change. Some might respond with "judge not lest ye be judged", but Jesus also says in the same verse: "Judge with righteous judgement". In short, if the fruit is rotten, putrid and full of maggots, then it is coming from a withered tree only looking beautiful on the outside. A whitewashed tomb.

• If Jesus is truly your Lord and Savior, then you will live for Him uncompromisingly in a world going mad. This includes a life of integrity, open repentance and accountability. If you fall short (and you will), your response to it is to 'cover up' and blame outside sources for your own poor choices, then God will deal with you as one who is proud and arrogant (for God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble... pride comes before the fall). Jesus reminds us in Revelation "Those whom I love I rebuke and chasten... be zealous therefore and repent".

• Professing followers of Jesus must not follow Him by lip service, for then we can be considered a hypocrite or lukewarm (Revelation 3:15/16, Revelation 21:8). If we truly follow Him, then our actions will reflect what we profess to believe. This simple rule even applies to the world, for if they profess XYZ to others but do not live that out (living as you preach), then you are considered a hypocrite and one who is 'living a lie'. The last thing you want to do is to live a lie 'in the name of God'. Our faith must be LIVING and ACTIVE both in speech and in action daily, otherwise we will end up in the horrifying reality of Matthew 7:21/23.