Let’s say a lamp is sitting on a table, and this lamp represents faith. If this lamp is never turned on it’s still a lamp. A lamp that is not being used as the designer fully intended is a lamp lacking purpose, but it is still a lamp. When the lamp is working and shining, it lights up for all to see the glory of the design and purpose for which it is intended. Like the lamp, your faith is complete when it is working as the designer had hoped and planned on. The unused lamp is dead until it produces light. Faith without action is dead as well. Faith without action doesn’t mean you lack faith, it simply means that your faith is waiting to come alive when you put it into action. When faith is put into action, it shines the glory of God for all to see. Remember, the more you let your light shine, the fewer places darkness has to hide!
Matthew 5:16 In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
2 Corinthians 4:6 For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
John 3:19-21 This is the judgment: that light has entered the world, and men have preferred darkness to light because their deeds were evil. Everybody who does wrong hates the light and keeps away from it, for fear his deeds may be exposed. But everybody who is living by the truth will come to the light to make it plain that all he has done has been done through God.
James 2:14-26 What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder. You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You seethat his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone. In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith
without deeds is dead.
