Quoting Luke Leong

heh heh... pirated from luke leong:

"faith and deeds

i originally intended to blog about something else, but i learnt a lot from discussing the following passage and just sharing at fellowship this evening. it was great to meet up with the rest of the guys once again and find out how everyone has been coping with post-traumatic stress disorder post-ord syndrome. our band of brothers was actually established as an ns support group but we've since transcended the boundaries of our ns cycle and i feel truly privileged to remain part of its continued existence.

what good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? can such faith save him? suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. if one of you says to him, "go, i wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his 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 what i do. you believe that there is one God. good! even the demons believe that - and shudder.

you foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? was not our ancestor 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 justified by what he does 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 2:14-26 (niv)

without going into too many details (our fellowship is top secret!), suffice to say that we all face numerous different struggles in life with no obvious solution (none that we easily accept anyway). while our faith is clear, living by it is sometimes another thing altogether. nevertheless, there's no denying the way, the truth and the life.

rehab, renew, restart

with driving fast coming to an end (test next tuesday!), i've decided to tweak my weekly schedule a bit. beginning this week, i'm going to reintegrate into fellowship at our all new time slot on tuesday evenings (been away for a while...) and start attending prayer meeting in church on fridays. important commitments indeed - time to take action!

posted by luke leong @ 1:39 AM 0 comments"