BTC Presents: "...but God..." A Weekday Morning Devotional Series James 2: 14-17

James 2: 14-17

Creators & Guests

Host

Chad McBeam

Business Leader, Foster Advocate and Fighter of Human Trafficking, Chad enjoys hosting this podcast channel as a way to spread and highlight the great examples of those who live out their faith daily. He can also be seen on occasion on your TV or Film Screen or be heard narrating one of your books as his love of acting has stuck with him since his childhood.

Writer

Aaron Marcarelli

After getting his under-graduate degree from Cal State University San Bernardino where he played college baseball and received all American honors. he was a graduate assistant baseball coach at both Trevecca Nazarene College in Nashville, Tennessee, and at Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington.  He received his master’s degree in Teaching from Whitworth, with plans to someday be a head baseball coach at a university.  However, God had other plans.  Aaron started teaching English and History and coaching baseball and other sports at the high school level and found out how much he loves high school kids, and he has been doing that for the past 27 years.     Personally, heI has been married to his wife Sharon for 32 years, they have one daughter, Amanda Parrish, who has been married to Austin Parrish for 2 years. Aaron also has two grandsons Travis age 2 ½ and Aden who is 13 months and are blessed to have another on the way due in May. Aaron loves reading, golfing, and spending time with his wife and grandkids.

LC

Designer

Linda Cowen

Linda Cowen of San Antonio Christian School is our gracious and talented art designer for the But God, weekday morning devotional series.

What is ...But God?

A weekday morning devotional series written by Aaron Marcarelli and hosted by Chad McBeam

“What use is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone says he has faith, but he has no works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? In the same way, faith also, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.”
James 2:14-17 NASB2020

This type of faith. The “faith” without doing that James is speaking of, is not really faith it is acceptance, of the gospel, it’s being a fervent admirer of God but not a true follower.
Jesus said that they will know we are Christians by our love. “I am giving you a new commandment, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all people will know that you are My disciples: if you have love for one another.”
John 13:34-35 NASB2020
The one with “faith” that says “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” is like the second son in this parable “But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, ‘ Son, go work today in the vineyard.’ But he replied, ‘I do not want to.’ Yet afterward he regretted it and went. And the man came to his second son and said the same thing; and he replied, ‘I will, sir’; and yet he did not go.”
Matthew 21:28-30 NASB2020
If we say we believe in Jesus that is great, but even the demons believe and shudder. To be a true believer and a follower of Christ we must have love and love is an active verb otherwise as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13 “If I speak with the tongues of mankind and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.”
1 Corinthians 13:1-2 NASB2020
For it was His perfect love that gave us grace at the cross. Our love must be active it must be the fruition of our faith. Otherwise we are running around naked with just our helmet of salvation and are not utilizing the other pieces of armor God has given us. Use all the armor most importantly the action of love! As Paul
concludes 1 Corinthians 13 “But now faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
1 Corinthians 13:13 NASB2020
Precious Heavenly Father, help us to love more consistently, help us to seek to serve rather than giving platitudes of Christianize to others. Help us to love like you and not judge. Let your light shine is us through your perfect and pleasing love. In Jesus Name Amen…
Shalom Shalom blessings! Press in and Press on!