The Truth About Faith That Looks Right but Changes Nothing

Kyle Wong grew up in a Christian family in Calgary, and

by every visible measure, he was doing everything right. He

attended church every Sunday and knew the Bible stories cold. His

parents were committed believers, and his life looked exactly like

what it was supposed to look But for all of that, nothing about

it was changing how he spent his week. He described it later as

spiritual complacency, a word he used carefully because it wasn't

rebellion and it wasn't doubt. It was something more gradual

than that. He believed the right things, and he showed up in the

right places. But somewhere along the way, his faith had

stopped connecting to the way he actually lived, Monday through

Saturday. Kyle's first year away at university was when he came

face to face with how little his faith had been doing for him.

That year brought loneliness, academic pressure, and the kind

of distance from home that forces you to take of what

you've been relying on. And what Kyle realized was that he hadn't

been relying on much. He came out the other side with a faith

that was his own. One he held on to because he needed it, and he

chose it for himself. We'll come back to what that turning point

looked like. But first,

Welcome to Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. I'm Bart Leger. And

there was a season in Bible college when I began treating my

walk with Christ more like an intellectual pursuit than

something that was supposed to make a difference in how I made

decisions. I was studying the Word every day, I could argue

theology, and I was preparing to preach. But looking back on that

period, knowing the things and being shaped by them weren't the

same thing for me. There was a gap, and I had gotten

comfortable enough with it that I barely noticed it anymore. And

it's that gap that we're talking about today. You can know the

verses and show up consistently and still be largely unchanged

by any of it. Your knowledge is there, and your church

attendance is there. But somewhere between the pew and

the rest of your life, it's not connecting. James addresses this

plainly in James 2, verses 17 and 18. So you see, faith by

itself isn't enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead

and useless. Now, someone may argue, some people have faith,

others have good deeds. But I say, how can you show me your

faith if you don't have good deeds? I will show you my faith

by my good deeds. James is writing to people who already

believe. He's pushing back on the assumption that belief alone

is the point, and his language is pretty direct. Faith without

works isn't just incomplete. He calls it dead. And dead doesn't

necessarily mean absent. A dead thing was once alive. Something

that was real became inert. James is saying that's exactly

what can happen to faith when it stops producing anything in the

way you live. The word he uses for good deeds is the Greek word

ergon, which means works or actions. Things done. Things

that we do. James isn't talking about earning salvation. He's

talking about the evidence of your salvation. Genuine faith

changes behavior, and if the behavior hasn't changed, it

raises an honest question about what the faith is doing. There's

a pattern, I believe, a lot of believers fall into over time.

They acquire more knowledge, attend church more consistently,

and become more fluent in what I call the language of the church,

and somehow end up less changed by all of it than they were at

the beginning. The information is still flowing in, but it's

not converting into anything on the other end. Belief becomes

something you know rather than something you live by. And in

Matthew 7.21, it's, I believe, one of the most sobering things

Jesus ever said. He said,

Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will

enter, is what he says. And he's not addressing pagans there.

He's addressing people who had the vocabulary and had the

appearances right. And his concern was that they had built

on the wrong foundation. The test that James and Jesus both

offer is a behavioral one. What does your faith require of you

this week? Where does it cost you something? And those aren't

questions that were designed to produce guilt in you. I believe

they're more diagnostic. They help you to find where the gap

is so you can close it. Now, let's get back to Kyle. Kyle

said later that the complacency he'd carried through most of his

life came from treating church attendance as the thing, instead

of treating it as the place where something else was

supposed to happen, where he was supposed to learn about God,

where he was supposed to use the spiritual gifts that God had

given him. He had been showing up and behaving well, and he'd

been getting the answers right. And his life from Monday through

Saturday looked about the same, as it would have if none of it

were true. That first year at university pushed him to a place

where he had to choose his own faith. It was something that he

had to choose personally instead of inheriting it and just simply

carrying it along from his childhood. And when he chose it,

it started to cost him something. That's when it became his. When

faith costs you something, it becomes yours. Inherited faith,

I mean the kind that you carry because it was handed down to

you and nobody ever pushed back on it, can go a long time

without being tested. And it can look fine from the outside, the

person hasn't owned it yet. It hasn't become theirs. When

Kyle's first year pushed him to choose, something happened that

all the attendants in the world hadn't produced. His faith

started showing up in his everyday life. It changed how he

made decisions and how he treated people and what he was

willing to sacrifice. That's James 2 working exactly the way

it was supposed to. And here's today's challenge. Pick one

specific area of your life this week where your faith is

supposed to make a difference. And ask yourself whether it is,

and be honest about it. It might be a relationship that needs

something from you or a decision that you've been putting off. I

want you to name that gap between what you know and what

you're doing. Then take one step toward closing it. I think

that's what faith in motion looks like. Lord, we confess

that we've sometimes treated you a substitute for following you.

We've gotten comfortable with that gap. Lord, please forgive

us. Show us where our faith has gone dormant in the way we

actually live. And give us the courage to let it cost us

something this week. We want a faith that moves, not just one

that sounds right. In Jesus' name, amen. If you need prayer

today, I'd love to hear from you. You can leave me a voicemail at

dailydevotionsforbusylives.com slash voicemail. I listen to

everyone, and it would be an honor to bring your name before

the Lord. And thanks for joining me on Daily Devotions for Busy

Lives. Remember, belief was always meant to move you

somewhere. If it hasn't moved you lately, today is a good day

to start. Come back next time for more encouragement to help

you live grounded in God's truth. Until then, God bless and have a

great day.