Love and marriage, love and marriage
They go together like a horse and carriage
This I tell you, brother
You can’t have one without the other

You can’t read this without singing it, right?  (By now the tune is stuck in your head!)  As Randy and I celebrate 53 years of marriage at the end of this month, I am recalling how important our belief in each other has kept our love for each other firmly grounded—through challenging times as well as the good times in our lives together.  Without love, marriage is merely a word used to describe your current living arrangement.  Without marriage, the intimacy of real love between two people is fleeting, a lack of commitment that suddenly fades away like the morning dew.

Love in marriage that is built on the foundation of our royal love of Christ in us; grows and matures into a love that seeks to please the other with acts of love.  When you believe in each other we “act” in distinctive ways toward each other.  For example, we look at each other with a smile when they enter the room.  We pray for each other daily.  We help each other and work as a team to accomplish life tasks.  We look for ways to please each other throughout the day.  When one is discouraged, we know it.  We either speak words of encouragement or don’t speak at all and just listen with a warm embrace.  These are learned behaviors from submitting ourselves to each other as we submit ourselves to Jesus.

James give us a new pairing of words—faith and doing.  Spoiler alert:  They are closely related to trust and obey!  According to James, you can’t have one without the other!

James 2, The Message

The Royal Rule of Love

2 ^1-4 My dear friends, don’t let public opinion influence how you live out our glorious, Christ-originated faith. If a man enters your church wearing an expensive suit, and a street person wearing rags comes in right after him, and you say to the man in the suit, “Sit here, sir; this is the best seat in the house!” and either ignore the street person or say, “Better sit here in the back row,” haven’t you segregated God’s children and proved that you are judges who can’t be trusted?

^5-7 Listen, dear friends. Isn’t it clear by now that God operates quite differently? He chose the world’s down-and-out as the kingdom’s first citizens, with full rights and privileges. This kingdom is promised to anyone who loves God. And here you are abusing these same citizens! Isn’t it the high and mighty who exploit you, who use the courts to rob you blind? Aren’t they the ones who scorn the new name—“Christian”—used in your baptisms?

^8-11 You do well when you complete the Royal Rule of the Scriptures: “Love others as you love yourself.” But if you play up to these so-called important people, you go against the Rule and stand convicted by it. You can’t pick and choose in these things, specializing in keeping one or two things in God’s law and ignoring others. The same God who said, “Don’t commit adultery,” also said, “Don’t murder.” If you don’t commit adultery but go ahead and murder, do you think your non-adultery will cancel out your murder? No, you’re a murderer, period.

^12-13 Talk and act like a person expecting to be judged by the Rule that sets us free. For if you refuse to act kindly, you can hardly expect to be treated kindly. Kind mercy wins over harsh judgment every time.

Faith in Action

^14-17 Dear friends, do you think you’ll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, “Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!” and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup—where does that get you? Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?

¹⁸ I can already hear one of you agreeing by saying, “Sounds good. You take care of the faith department, I’ll handle the works department.”

Not so fast. You can no more show me your works apart from your faith than I can show you my faith apart from my works. Faith and works, works and faith, fit together hand in glove.

^19-20 Do I hear you professing to believe in the one and only God, but then observe you complacently sitting back as if you had done something wonderful? That’s just great. Demons do that, but what good does it do them? Use your heads! Do you suppose for a minute that you can cut faith and works in two and not end up with a corpse on your hands?

^21-24 Wasn’t our ancestor Abraham “made right with God by works” when he placed his son Isaac on the sacrificial altar? Isn’t it obvious that faith and works are yoked partners, that faith expresses itself in works? That the works are “works of faith”? The full meaning of “believe” in the Scripture sentence, “Abraham believed God and was set right with God,” includes his action. It’s that weave of believing and acting that got Abraham named “God’s friend.” Is it not evident that a person is made right with God not by a barren faith but by faith fruitful in works?

^25-26 The same with Rahab, the Jericho harlot. Wasn’t her action in hiding God’s spies and helping them escape—that seamless unity of believing and doing—what counted with God? The very moment you separate body and spirit, you end up with a corpse. Separate faith and works and you get the same thing: a corpse.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

If we were unsure how our faith affects what we do in Jesus Name for His glory and our good; James makes it crystal clear.  Faith in God is tied to our obedience to God.  Our true belief is reflected in our behaviors.  Believing is defined by James as “acts of faith” that please God.  It is that profoundly simple.  You can’t have one without the other! In fact, faith without acts of faith is a dead faith.  Yikes!  Yes, James said that out loud for the church to sit up and take notice!

“To obey is better than sacrifice” Samuel said to God’s people when they were fooling around with idols and practices not of God in their world.  God clearly told his people then and now; what counts before Him is our complete, unrestrained, loving, committed obedience. 

“Do you think all God wants are sacrifices—empty rituals just for show?
He wants you to listen to him! Plain listening is the thing, not staging a lavish religious production.
Not doing what God tells you is far worse than fooling around in the occult.
Getting self-important around God is far worse than making deals with your dead ancestors.
Because you said No to God’s command, he says No to your kingship.” 1 Samuel 15:22, MSG

When God invites us to join Him in His work, it is a privilege!  Our response to the God, who we say we believe, must be an eager yes!  Feeling inadequate, humbled by the request, overwhelmed by the immensity of the work or underwhelmed by the smallness of the task, the time it will take, or the people it will affect are not considered by God as excuses.  Where God guides, He provides all we need to fulfill what He has asked us to be and do.  ALL for His glory and for our good because He is God and He is Good.

When Jesus walked the earth, He pointed out the same principle of obedience to the people who wanted to believe in what He said but had all kinds of reasons and excuses for not acting on their believing faith with following Him.

“On the road someone asked if he could go along. “I’ll go with you, wherever,” he said.

Jesus was curt: “Are you ready to rough it? We’re not staying in the best inns, you know.”

Jesus said to another, “Follow me.”

He said, “Certainly, but first excuse me for a couple of days, please. I have to make arrangements for my father’s funeral.”

Jesus refused. “First things first. Your business is life, not death. And life is urgent: Announce God’s kingdom!”

Then another said, “I’m ready to follow you, Master, but first excuse me while I get things straightened out at home.”

Jesus said, “No procrastination. No backward looks. You can’t put God’s kingdom off till tomorrow. Seize the day.”  Luke 9:57-62, MSG

Wow, what’s my excuse?  That’s the question I am pausing to think about this morning as I ponder the royal rule of love of Christ in me. 

Is my love expressed by my commitment to follow in obedience to God’s invitation? 

Is the real love of God realized and expanded in me as I think of how deep Jesus authentic relentless love must be as He demonstrated this act of love on the cross for me?

Does my love, faith and hope cause a great desire in me to please God in all I think, say, and do?  For certain, what I believe in faith will be reflected in my acts of faith behaviors. 

Lord,

Cleanse my heart, renew my mind, refresh my soul and restore the joy of your salvation work that transforms me to be and do all you created me to be and do.  I’m listening and ready to obey.  Help us, Lord.

In Jesus Name, Amen