By Jessica Brodie
When you hear the phrase “faith in action,” do you does your mind usually jump to something really big and dramatic? Faith in action often makes me think of my friend who was a missionary nurse in Zambia during her twenties, or my other friend who has spent the last two decades repairing homes in the aftermath of disasters in the name of Jesus Christ. I think of pastors, law enforcement, and medical workers who spend their time and often entire careers doing bold and selfless acts of service.
But recently, I realized that faith in action isn’t always grand in scale. Sometimes it’s a quieter movement, a seemingly small moment, when we decide to go ahead and simply do something that God has put on our hearts.
What caused my revelation was talking to someone who was struggling about his motivations in picking up God’s word.
“Am I just doing it because I am ‘supposed’ to read the Bible, because it’s an obligation and I know I should? Shouldn’t I want to do this and feel a burning passion to do it?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Ideally, sure. But sometimes you need to just go ahead and do it regardless of the motivation. You just need to be obedient when it comes what you’re supposed to do.”
As the words left my lips, I realized something profound: that even simple obedience is actually an act of faith.
Obedience to God is doing God’s will. It’s doing what you know should be done. Maybe you don’t want to do it. In your heart, you don’t actually want to read the Bible, go to church, or give that $10 bill to the man you encounter outside the gas station. You don’t want to forgive or offer mercy.
But you feel a tug, that Holy Spirit nudge, and something in your heart that says you need to do it.
And so you do—and when you do, it becomes an act of obedience. It becomes a tiny leap of faith, a situation where you are stepping outside your own desires and making a decision to do something.
In so doing, your actions become living faith… even if you didn’t really want to do it in the first place.
It’s the act of doing, the act of being obedient, that becomes faith in action.
In the Book of James, the apostle wrote:
“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their 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 my deeds” (James 2:14-18 NIV).
We’re not perfect. Ideally, those of us who believe and follow Christ feel deep joy and satisfaction in every moment. We set aside selfish, fleshly desires readily and model Jesus in all ways we can. But that’s not always the case. We are human beings, and there is a war raging inside of us and all around us. Sometimes it’s a war of our own will to do what is right. In Romans 7:15-20, the apostle Paul talks about how wretched we all are, for in our minds we are slaves to God’s law but in our bodies we are slaves to sin.
As he writes, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.”
Remember this, my friends: When we obey God, it’s another tally mark in the “God wins” side of the scoreboard.
It’s faith in action, no matter how big or how small the deed.
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