Today is the feast of Saints Philip and James, the Apostles. Pray for us.
I do not mean to leave out St. Philip in this post or diminish him in any way on this feast of these great men.
As I was laying in bed pondering and praying, a very bright revelation came to mind.
What good would come from everything I have written in this blog, and everything I have pondered for every second throughout my conversion, all the insight I have obtained through prayer, the things I have witnessed in my dealings, if I have never put any of it to work in my own life? It would all amount to nothing. I prayed to St James for more information regarding faith without works and this is the answer I received. In a flash!
You buy a toy for your children that needs assembly. You open the box and dump everything in the middle of the floor. It comes with instructions. You sit with the instructions and think, wow, what a cool toy my children are going to love this! You read the list of tools needed, you look through everything on the floor and all the pieces are there. You sit back down and read the instructions. You get up, and head to work. You come home from work and the toy is still sitting in the exact place in the middle of the floor. You sit down and read the instructions thinking how great the engineer was that designed this toy! You set the instructions on the table and turn on the TV and completely ignore the pieces all over the floor. Days and years pass and the pieces are still sitting exactly where you left them, but every day, you read the instructions.
If you do not APPLY the instructions to the piece, it does no good. The instructions are designed to work with that toy and that toy needs those instructions to be placed together in perfection to be used and enjoyed!
“What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” James 2:14-26
“As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.” James 2:26