Zechariah 8, James 2

(Zechariah 8)

This is what the LORD says: "I am very jealous for Zion; I am burning with jealousy for her.”

It’s one thing when someone who is jealous for something you have, It’s another when someone is jealous for you. While it truly depends upon the psychological health of the person who is jealous for you, it can feel pretty good to have someone value you so much that when you’re not close to them, it makes them jealous. Many times at the heart level, this is a desire they have to want to be valued by you.

So what is it that makes God jealous? Obviously he looks at his creation and sees a nation fallen away. Their loyalties are elsewhere no matter what their creator has done and promised for them. And God is provoked to jealousy. This is jealousy in the purest form as well. In fact, the original text uses the word three times in verse 2. In fact it tells us that not only was God jealous, but he was provoked to “excessive” envy.

So what provoked him? Probably many things, but mostly, our loyalty. And after all he had done for us, scripture says he was provoked with what the Hebrew says was the “greatest amount of fury and indignation and displeasure”.

So how did he respond? Verse 3 says, “So I will return to them…” and “I will bring them back to me”, and I will “bring them joy”.

God thank you that in your indignation and displeasure, you’re desire is to reconcile us in relationship and that you find joy in bringing us joy. God, thank you that you love is so great that you want your absolute best for your creation. Thank you that your love endures forever.

(James 2)

“In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”

This is a powerful statement. It’s not saying that the faith without works is non-existent. It’s saying that it’s worthless. To whom? Doesn’t say, but let’s make the obvious statement: it’s worthless to everyone.

In the original text, James uses the word for faith that he has used throughout his letter. It comes from the word that we typically think of when we say faith meaning to “believe” but has a different bent. This is the word that means not only a belief, but a literally a “moral conviction of a religious truth ESPECIALLY a reliance upon Christ for Salvation and CONSTANCY in such profession.”

The word “works” is a word of action. It means, “to toil as an effort or occupation”. So literally, it’s talking about a physical response to our faith. Something we DO. It’s talking about works of service.

Without these works, scripture says our faith is “dead”. Really? Dead? Yup. Dead. What does that mean? It means our faith is worthless. The word used in the scripture is the same word used for “corpse”. Gruesome, right? Even more gruesome, it’s reality. When our faith is all about us and there is no action that results because of love or thanksgiving, we are as good as a corpse. Shouldn’t we be proud? No? Why doesn’t this bother us more as believers when there is no work of service in our lives?

James says when we think of this, we should imagine a dead body laying there. It’s lifeless, literally dead weight. It doesn’t do a thing. It requires someone else to move it around, and man, there is a reason they call “dead weight”, dead weight. It seems heavier to whoever is carrying it. Maybe even burdensome (get the word picture?) to those around. Worse yet, it stinks. It’s very repulsive to most everyone, except those who are used to being around it. It’s rotting, and getting worse each day, to the point in which you can’t even see what it once looked like.

This is faith without works. How long can we have faith like that, before we become a corpse? The great news, we have a remedy. It’s something that breathes life into our faith. And it’s a simple thing to serve one another.

I believe with all my heart that one of Satan’s greatest attacks on the church is to convince us that we don’t need to serve others more. He tries to make us okay with the status quo. Just enough to feel good about ourselves, and it’s working. We have so many believers walking around and so many churches that are literally the walking dead.

God, protect us from the death of service-less faith. You’ve called us to a life of purpose. Only in that purpose will we find the full life, that in our deepest places, we desire. Thank you father, that it is your desire as well.