Gifts Part 2

An interesting thing I learned last week was that the book of James was actually inconsideration for being left out of the Bible. Yep, that’s right, one of my favorite books in the New Testament was almost left out (I’m glad God stopped them). The reason being that people incorrectly interpreted his “faith and deeds” passage to mean we need good works to get into Heaven. This couldn’t be farther from the truth and it also pertains to my gift analogy by answering the question of how are we to react to this gift we are given. James essentially says (it’s a long passage so I’ll summarize), that faith is no good without our good works to back it up. This is entirely true and it is found all the time in our daily life think if I want to apply for a loan but have no credit, is my word that I will pay it back good enough? This doesn’t mean we need to earn our salvation, but James is asking us to live it out. This goes back to how are we to respond to our gift from God? Should we just say a quick “thanks” and then forget about it and let it collect dust long after the holidays? NO! God gave us this gift of life so that it could be used, we have Jesus so that we can actively seek God everyday of the year, and the evidence of the seeking will be our good works. Think, if I work out the whole winter and really fine tune my swing then it will show in the spring, the same goes for our life with God, if we work hard and seek God first it will show in our works and our gift of life will be well used. This year try not to let this gift get away, instead of collecting dust with all the other stuff we get I say we actively pursue God this Christmas season, and every day afterward.