Transformed Mind

Father God, it just amazes me how truly creative You are. While sitting in a hotel in Frankfurt doing homework the song “Red is the Rose,” by The Chieftains comes on, an Irish diddy with life, vibrancy, and spirit. In but a few moments it picks me up out of my chair and brings me to my knees. It’s not necessarily the music, but what that music represents, an imaginative, creative, and awesome God that provides beauty and joy for all through His creation. It’s the small things that we take for granted in life that when we stop and look, really proclaim Your genius, Your splendor, Your awareness. Father, why do You give us such extravagant gifts to enjoy and share when we so often turn away from You? I thank You for loving me in my brokenness. That when I attribute inspiration and ingenuity to others, that it is really You behind it all. I read Revelation and picture the multitudes, every creature on earth, under it, and in the sea singing praises to You in every type of music...

“What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?” – James 2:14 Hmm, good question brother James, what does saving faith look like? Off the bat, before I even skim the top of this question, I would like to clarify one thing. James is in no way saying that a person can save themselves through works. His friend and colleague Paul makes this quite clear. The difference is that where Paul talks about God’s grace alone saving through faith (Ephesians 2:5), that is, a believer’s initial entry into a relationship with God through Christ, James here talks about what that transforming, new creation life looks like once brought into relationship and under the care of God. Friends, Jesus did not take the sins of the world upon himself so that we could give him a nod of acknowledgement and then go right back to sinning, NO, we are made into a new creation, “created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand…” (Ephesian...