Faith In God Alone

If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do. [James 1.5-8]

For all that I believe the Lord has been speaking to me over the last weeks and months, Today's OYCB reading from James serves as a summary of confirmation!

James highlighted the fact that our faith should be "in God alone." He included words like "waver" and "divided loyalty" including "unsettled, unstable, blown," and "tossed" in his discussion about the matter of not having faith in God alone. These words are not compliments, but instead describe the pitiful condition of a person who is not convinced that God alone is capable of solving their problems: answering their prayer, healing their body, or meeting their need. James is clear: Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.

Divided loyalty was not a new problem when James addressed it. In fact, it is as old as Israel itself. Israel's history, as recorded in the Bible, is nothing if it is not a story of divided loyalty. Israel's propensity to trust in other sources (idols in God's eyes) was constantly the ongoing subject of Old Testament writings. Not surprisingly, the First Commandment offered a foresight of Israel's loyalty problem.

You must not have any other god but me. [Exodus 20.3]

While we might console ourselves in saying, "that was Israel's problem..." we must remember that Israel serves as the picture of all God's people making "divided loyalty" a modern believer problem too (just as James pointed out in his letter to believers in Christ). Only by willful and decided ignorance would anyone deny that "divided loyalty" is a problem today in modern Christianity. James' letter is as poignantly accurate about the problem of divided loyalty today as it was when the ink was still wet after his writing it.

For all the chagrin associated with my 'beating the same old drum' for months now about idolatry (our divided loyalty between God and the solutions of the world), I find myself in good company with James, and therefore, the Holy Spirit, in recognizing that divided loyalty is THE nemesis of faith that pleases God.

In today's OYCB reading, James also recognizes and calls out the faith-disabling power of the human tongue (starting in James 3.2). As chronology would have it, James' writing about the tongue, and the "fire" it unleashes, falls close to Paul's recent description of "fiery arrows (or darts) of Satan" that faith is our defense against. Coincidence? Not a chance! The sad truth is, the fiery arrows Satan launches at us as thoughts and imaginations, if not rejected by faith, become a confirming flow of fiery flames (death, theft and destruction) from our own mouths!

Why did I seem to change subjects here? I didn't. Divided loyalty is the reason we do not categorically reject the fiery arrows of Satan but instead let them in (as a reasonable option) and subsequently repeat them with our very own mouths! It's all tied together! But it starts with our loyalty to God - or lack thereof.

Not ironically, James speaks of Abraham's faith in today's OYCB reading (James 2.21-23). For all the faith stories of the Bible, Abraham's story in regard to his willingness to offer Isaac as a sacrifice stands out as perhaps the most radical faith story in the Bible. And, Abraham, we are Biblically told, is the "Father of Faith." So if Abraham's radical faith secured the title "Father of Faith," what does that tell us about our faith? It tells us there is NO ROOM for divided loyalty if our faith is to please God.

Time as we know it, seems to be drawing to its end. As abstract as faith has become in the modern era, it makes perfect sense that there would be a necessary revival of undivided loyalty to God (concrete faith) at this time. It won't be popular, but it WILL make a distinction between "sheep" and "goats" as the Bible says we should expect.

Father, help us to approach the last days of time on earth in a manner that most pleases You - in pure undivided faith and loyalty to You!