Working out our Faith

Today we have a visit to the nursing home planned. It is so funny how little things always make me frustrated about having to go each month. Yet when i get there, it is such an amazing experience just to help these people who have no one experience true joy for an hour.

We really take so many things for granted in this life we lead. Just yesterday in our ladies Bible study, which is on the book of James, we were discussing this. And i must really take things for granted because this morning as i am trying to prepare our verses and readings for today's visit, i come across this devotional from the Daily Bread website. I see that God wanted me to read and focus on this today. I thought i would share it with you too.

       "No one can be saved by doing good works. On the other hand, the apostle James taught that faith without works is useless. (James 2:20) To illustrate, he pointed out that faith alone won't feed a hungry person. Only faith that takes action will. (vv. 15-16)

How timely this message is! Right now much of our world is suffering a bellyache from not enough food, while countless others have a bellyache from to much. 

Tragically, we who have enough to eat often "bellyache" about our food being too done, too tough, too sweet, too cold, too bland. Then we complain about the dirty dishes that our food creates. A poem from one of my cookbooks turns such ingratitude on its head. Pauline Davis wrote:

Thank God for dirty dishes, they have a story to tell. 

While others may be hungry, we are eating very well. 

With home, health, and happiness, I shouldn't want to fuss.

By this great stack of evidence, God's been very good to us!

Oh, that we might be grateful, for gratitude is vital to a working faith. People without gratitude seldom care about having a working faith. But believers who are deeply thankful for God's blessings long to share those blessings with others.

Make sure your faith is useful, not useless. And don't neglect the needy, both spiritually and physically, around the world -- around the corner!"   Joanie Yoder... Our Daily Bread

I am going to try to be more active in my faith today. I have heard say that faith, though according to Webster is a noun, it should really be a verb. Because faith is something you need to actively preserve everyday.