Faith + Works = Results

James 2:14-18

¹⁴ What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone?

¹⁵ Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing,

¹⁶ and you say, “Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well”—but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do?

¹⁷ So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.

¹⁸ Now someone may argue, “Some people have faith; others have good deeds.” But I say, “How can you show me your faith if you don’t have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds.”

I have to admit that I did not know that starting a church would take so much work. That does not mean that I have no appreciation for how hard it is to start a church. It does mean that even at the level of difficulty that I had imagined, reality has revealed that I still fell short. Keep in mind that God has blessed me with a great support team. There are other Church Planters who are doing this without a support team. I count my blessings and I thank God for it.

Just like this calling to start Gospel Outreach Community Church (GOCC) requires a lot of faith and action, we as Christians need to be people of faith and action. As James 2:16-18 states, we can't simply pray for the needs of someone without also seeking how we can meet that need.

I attended the 2014 Prince William County (PWC) Neighborhood Conference. This conference revealed plenty of areas of need within PWC community. It is not enough for GOCC to pray that the needs be met. We have to support with our prayers and actions. We will pray in faith that the littered streets will be clean and we will volunteer to be part of the clean-up days. We will pray in faith that seniors and low income individuals will be able to get important maintenance done on their homes and we will volunteer with Habitat for Humanity.

There are plenty of activities that we can pray for and work towards. James helps us to understand that praying does not release us from working and working does not release us from praying. Let us show our FAITH by our GOOD DEEDS. Faith without works is dead. Faith with works equals results.

Is there anything that you are praying about that you need to be working on at the same time?