Faith Without Works: A Lesson on Success

While reading the Bible this morning, I came across this verse from James 2:26 (NKJV)  that reads, "...faith without works is dead..." Even now, that verse continues to echo in my head. What does this mean and how can we apply this lesson to our lives?

As I reflect on the context of this verse, reading James 2:14-26 (NKJV), I immediately think about the areas of my life where I pray for change to happen. The prayer could be about a change in my finances, health, business, personal relationships, or spiritual walk, but whatever it is that I am praying for, I realized that I have do something in order to trigger a response.

During a sermon titled, "Destiny - The Palace Challenge," Pastor Matt Fry made the following statement, "When we are faithful, God says he will add his super to your natural." 

Let's let that marinate for a moment. When we are FAITHFUL, God will add his SUPER to our NATURAL. 

Define "Faithful"

In the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the word faithful can be simply defined as "keeping your promises or doing what you are supposed to do." To me, this means that if we are to be faithful, then we have to take ACTION within our lives.

To put it another way, we have the opportunity to unlock God's supernatural power toward our finances, health, business, personal relationships, and spiritual walk when we are faithful with our natural abilities.

Applying Faith

The application of faith, as I understand it, is by keeping the Lord's commandments and doing what he says that we should do. To do anything other than what is instructed means that we may get different results. Below are a few ideas on how we can apply faith in our lives:

• In order to be blessed financially, we should be faithful in bringing our tithes or first fruit.
• In order to have a healthy body, we should be faithful in eating right and working out.
• In order to build a strong business, we should be faithful in doing income generating activities.
• In order to have a healthy relationship, we should be faithful in loving others.
• In order to have a real relationship with the Lord, we should be faithful in following commandments and spending time with him. 

While this list is not exhaustive, the point is that our blessings come not just by hoping, wishing, and praying for a change, but by taking persistent, consistent, and appropriate ACTION that releases change into our lives. Our actions, right or wrong, is the key that unlocks results. 

As my friend Marc Accetta would often say, let's go "take massive action" in our lives today.