James 2:17 - Bible Study

James 2:17 - What Does It Mean?

I had forgotten that I had written about this verse before. That was a good study about activating faith or bringing it to life by acting on it.

Today the Holy Spirit showed me something else about this verse. I suppose it's just further explanation of what was poorly interpreted. (Or perhaps a well-to-do translator added on to it to make it fit their worldview).

So, there are two miracles where Yeshua (Jesus) multiplies loaves of bread and fish, and the Holy Spirit showed me that He thanked the Father and went straight to the motion of handing out the fish. He did not wait until He saw the fish multiply. He believed, and as He set forth to do what He believed God had provided for, the fish and bread multiplied.

FAITH - the evidence of things unseen.

If a person believes that he has what he's asked for, then he will be grateful to the father and then put other things in motion that depend on that thing being done.

For example, you have asked God to provide for a missions trip. You do not see everything in place, but you have asked in faith and believe it is done. So, would a person of faith wait until all the funds arrived and all the paperwork was finished to go? Or would a person of faith realize that God knew you needed His help before you asked, and just complete all the details concerning the trip right up until the day.

I heard Cathy Lechner tell a story about the Holy Spirit telling her to take a trip to a particular place and that the trip was paid for. She went to the airport without a ticket and gave them her name for the reservation to find that an "angel" had gone before her and paid for everything.

Yeshua (Jesus) gave the example. He even said he was praying aloud for the crowd's sake when he was about to raise Lazarus from death. If Cathy did not go to the airport, her faith would have been dead before the miracle showed up. And, so it is with you. When you pray and really believe that God has done what you asked "like He promised to do," then you will be full of thanksgiving and move on with the other actions that you can do.

Noah had faith that God was talking to him, and built a boat in the midst of laughter and scorn.
Peter walked on water because he had the faith to step out of the boat.

It would seem that faith or all the miracles we are looking for lay stillborn (dead) in the spirit realm, and we bring them to life when we believe with the eyes of our heart (faith in unseen) rather than our physical eyes (faith in the seen). Circumstances (creation) are always subject to the Creator (and He lives in you). How then can you fear and doubt if you really believe this?

 Let's look at a direct translation...

...now that's interesting... there's one unintelligible word in there, but the rest is pretty plain.

"so also faith, if not dead, is he echi work itself throughout"

Faith does not stop. Faith is alive when it is in motion. When something stops it is dead.

I think that is basic difference between things that are alive and things that are dead. Live things move. Dead things cannot. Faith continues working itself out into reality, and without that effort to birth the thing from the invisible womb of creation it will die.

In short, those with real faith see a thing as done and complete before they ask and do not wait for the circumstances to change in order to believe and take action on what they requested.