The Friday after the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on October 24, 2025 by under
Scripture: James 3:13-18 (NKJV)
3:13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. 15 This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. 16 For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. 17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. 18 Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
Devotion
Faith is not to be hidden. It shows itself in life. James warns that envy, selfish ambition, and disorder spring from unbelief. A person who confesses Christ but lives in such sins denies the very faith he claims.
Some misuse James to contradict the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Yet James does not teach salvation by works. Instead, he insists that genuine faith cannot be barren. Just as gravity works whether one acknowledges it or not, so faith acts. If someone claims to believe in gravity, yet leaps from a building, his actions prove otherwise. Likewise, a Christian who continually embraces sin shows his confession to be false.
James’ words call us to repentance, not self-justification. None of us lives perfectly. But where faith lives, there fruits appear, however weak. When we sin, we confess and return to Christ, who alone is our righteousness. Where His wisdom rules, there is peace, mercy, and good fruit.
Thus, faith and works are not opposed but united: faith justifies, and faith works. The Gospel makes us alive, and the Spirit bears fruit in our lives. To live contrary to Christ is to lie against the truth; to live in Him is to walk in His peace.
Collect: O God, forasmuch as without Thee we are not able to please Thee: Mercifully grant that Thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
