NOVEMBER 20, 2014
Can
You Help?
Read: James
2:14-20
Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. —James 2:17
The administrators of
the high school in Barrow, Alaska, were tired of seeing students get into
trouble and drop out at a rate of 50 percent. To keep students interested, they
started a football team, which offered them a chance to develop personal
skills, teamwork, and learn life lessons. The problem with football in Barrow,
which is farther north than Iceland, is that it’s hard to plant a grass field.
So they competed on a gravel and dirt field.
Four thousand miles
away in Florida, a woman named Cathy Parker heard about the football team and
their dangerous field. Feeling that God was prompting her to help, and
impressed by the positive changes she saw in the students, she went to work.
About a year later, they dedicated their new field, complete with a beautiful
artificial-turf playing surface. She had raised thousands of dollars to help
some kids she didn’t even know.
This is not about
football—or money. It is about remembering “to do good and to share” (Heb.
13:16). The apostle James reminds us that we demonstrate our faith by our
actions (2:18). The needs in our world are varied and overwhelming but when we
love our neighbor as ourselves, as Jesus said (Mark 12:31), we reach people
with God’s love.
Open our eyes, dear
Father, to those in need. Allow
us to find
ways—monetarily and otherwise—to
help meet those needs.
Help us to take the focus off
ourselves and place it
on those who can use our assistance.
Open your heart to God to learn compassion and
open your hand to give help.
Insight
There is disagreement
among scholars as to the identity of the James who authored this letter. Some
see him as the son of Alphaeus (Matt. 10:3; Mark 3:18). Long-held church
tradition, however, identifies this James as the half-brother of Jesus (Matt.
13:55; Mark 6:3). In Galatians 1:19, Paul mentions seeing James, “the Lord’s
brother,” in Jerusalem—and this has fueled the position that the James of the
Jerusalem church and the James who wrote this letter was in fact “the Lord’s
brother.” James became a person of great prominence in the early church, having
received a personal audience with the risen Christ (1 Cor. 15:7) and having become
one of the primary leaders of the church at Jerusalem (Acts 15:13-20).
Source:
Our Daily Bread 2012