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This is what James the brother of Jesus was talking about in James 2:14-18 when he said,

"What use is it, my brethren, if a man 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,’ and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. But someone may well say, ‘You have faith, and I have works: show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.’"

Somebody at this point will jump in and say, "See! You are saved by works!" First, The Book of James is not the Bible, but is one book of many books in the Bible and therefore must be taken in the context of everything else that the Bible teaches. Second, we need to understand that James was not talking to the unsaved, but to believers. Third, we need to understand the motivation behind what James wrote here, and that is that Jerusalem was undergoing a famine. The Christians who had were not taking care of their brethren who did not have, they were hording and taking care of themselves. This goes first of all back to the evidence of a true Christian when he loves the children of God. James’ point here is exactly what we are talking about. They were saying they had faith, but their faith wasn’t being evidenced by their works, by their love for the children of God. Their selfishness and self-centeredness was demonstrating just the opposite. Therefore James’ rebuke of the lack of the evidence of their faith was justified. But this passage is also talking about that if a person truly knows Jesus, then it will be evidenced through his obedience to Christ and through his works which brings us to our next evidence.

The sixth evidence is a hunger and a thirst for righteousness. When a person comes to know Jesus and the depth of Jesus’ love for him through his salvation, that person loves Jesus and wants to serve him. That person has a hunger and a thirst for righteousness, for the truth. Jesus said it this way in John 3:19-21,

"And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God."

A person who knows Jesus and loves Jesus does not run from Him. A person who knows Jesus cannot get enough of Him. He wants Him all the more, so he draws near to Christ all the more because he wants his will and purpose for his life. This is the purpose of a daily Quiet Time with Jesus and His Word: it is a time to seek Jesus about what in your life is of Him and what is not and what works He wants you to do and what works He wants you to cease so you know that your works are the result of God’s initiative, not your own and are wrought in God.

Jesus put it this way in John 5:44,

"How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another, and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?"

You are a mature Christian when what You do is out of your love relationship with Jesus, not because it will gain you the approval of men. Jesus said,

"Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man shall give to you, for on Him God the Father has set His seal." (John 6:27)

If a person claims to know Jesus, but shows no evidence of a hunger and a thirst for righteousness, no change of life-style, the Bible teaches that that person is a liar.

The most important thing on Jesus’ heart is our bringing others to a saving knowledge of who He is, yet most Christians I talk to about how important this issue is have a million excuses of why they cannot get involved. Only God knows those who are his, but based on what Jesus said, I have a right to question the legitimacy of their faith. They are too busy chasing after the world to care about those who do not yet know Jesus. They are storing up treasures on earth rather than in heaven. Paul put it this way in Philippians 3:18-20

"For many walk of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things. For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ."

Finally, the seventh evidence is a hatred toward sin. The Apostle John wrote in 1 John 5:18, "We know that no one who is born of God sins; but He who was born of God keeps him and the evil one does not touch him." In 1 John 1:8, John is very plain in saying that if we say we have no sin, we are liars; so John is not saying here that if you know Jesus that you will not sin in your walk with Jesus. On this side of heaven we have the presence of a fallen soul and flesh that is yet to be redeemed and under the power of sin. It is only because of the Grace of Jesus that we have any restraint over sin in our lives at all (Rom 1:28-32). So John is not talking about sin out of weakness here. He is talking about wilful deliberate sin. He is telling us that a person who is born of God through the Holy Spirit does not practice deliberate wilful sin. A child of God may not be able to keep from sinning on a continuous basis, but he hates sin and is very grieved when he does sin. He cries out to Jesus for His deliverance and for his power to overcome the sin in his life.

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