Day-12-Lenten-Reflection.docx

 

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🕊️ *LENTEN DEVOTION – DAY 12* 🕊️

*Second Sunday of Lent*

 

💔 *Faith with Calluses*💔

 

One of my Ministers-in-training once came to me after a week’s retreat and said, *_“Dad, I have studied all the sacred texts you asked me to study. I can recite the doctrines perfectly. I understand the theology deeply.”_* I smiled and gestured towards the vast garden at the Resort Centre. *_“Tell me, which tree in that garden is holy?”_* Confused, the disciple replied, *_“None, Milord Bishop. They are merely trees.”_* Then, I nodded. *_“Indeed, Man of God. But the one that bears fruit feeds the hungry. The one that offers shade shelters the weary. The one whose branches house the birds serves the kingdom. Knowledge without fruit is a tree that takes up space. Faith without works is just the same. Apply those doctrines prayerfully to realise how well you have mastered Christ’s doctrine.”_*

 

On this Second Sunday of Lent, Apostle James confronts us with uncomfortable clarity: *_“What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,’ but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”_* (James 2:14-17)

 

These are brazen words for a culture that has too often divorced belief from behaviour, creed from conduct, orthodoxy from orthopraxy.

*_Orthopraxy,_* derived from Greek orthos (“right”) and praxis (“doing”), refers to the belief that correct action and ethical conduct are as crucial as, or more important than, religious faith or dogma. It contrasts with “Orthodoxy” (right belief) by emphasising the practical application of faith, rituals, and righteous deeds. Most of us have become experts at religious language whilst remaining amateurs at sacrificial love. It breeds religiosity devoid of godliness, which affects Africa so much. It has made some elites to abhor some believers’ dogma or  hypocrisy to the extent of brazenly criticising the Church and the faith, becoming *_apostates!_* We can debate theology for hours yet walk past human need without pausing. We celebrate the concept of grace whilst withholding it from those who desperately require it. Majority of anti-religion critics stigmatise all pious believers in the faith because one religious leader erred. What a judgmental generation we are becoming!

 

James is not suggesting we earn salvation through works—Scripture is crystal clear that *_we are saved by grace through faith, not by works, lest anyone should boast._* Rather, he insists that genuine faith inevitably produces visible fruit. Faith is not merely intellectual assent to doctrinal propositions; it is a living, breathing, active force that transforms how we treat our neighbour, spend our resources, use our time, and respond to injustice.

 

*_“Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works,”_* James challenges (James 2:18). *Faith that remains theoretical is not faith at all—it is philosophy. Faith that never leaves the sanctuary to enter the streets is not the faith of Jesus, who touched lepers, fed multitudes, defended the accused, and died for the guilty.*

 

Lent calls us beyond pious feelings to practical holiness. It asks: Does your fasting make you more compassionate towards the hungry? Does your prayer sensitise you to injustice? Does your almsgiving reflect genuine solidarity with the poor, or is it merely the spare change of a comfortable life?

 

*True faith has calluses.* It bears the marks of serving others, of inconvenient compassion, of sacrificial generosity. It looks like the Good Samaritan crossing the road. It sounds like Zacchaeus offering restitution. It feels like Mary breaking the alabaster jar. It costs like the widow’s two mites: Priceless.

 

Today, let us examine not merely what we believe, but how we live. For faith without works is dead—but faith with works is resurrection life breaking into the world, one act of love at a time. *(Ephesians 2:8-10)*

 

 

🙏 *LITURGICAL PRAYER* 🙏

 

*_O God of Active Love,_* who did not merely speak redemption but enacted it through the broken body and shed blood of Your Son, who demonstrated Your love not in theory but in sacrifice, I come before You confessing the chasm that too often exists between my professed faith and my lived reality. I can recite creeds whilst ignoring cries for help. I can sing hymns of love whilst harbouring resentment. I can claim allegiance to the cross whilst refusing to bear my own. Forgive me for treating faith as intellectual agreement rather than whole-life transformation. Forgive me for the times I have spoken peace to the needy without offering provision, quoted Scripture to the suffering without extending comfort, professed compassion without practising costly love. Awaken me from the slumber of theoretical faith into the vibrant reality of active discipleship. *(James 2:14-17; 1 John 3:18)*

 

*_Father, Your Word declares that faith without works is dead,_* and I confess that parts of my faith have grown cold, lifeless, disconnected from the realities of the world around me. Show me where my faith has become mere sentiment, where my prayers have replaced action, where my theology has excused inaction. Open my eyes to see the naked and destitute in my path—not merely the physically poor, but those impoverished in spirit, starving for dignity, naked of hope, destitute of love. Give me faith that does not simply wish them well but meets their need. Faith that crosses the street. Faith that shares the meal. Faith that sits in the silence. Faith that costs something real. Let my Lenten disciplines not make me more religious but more human, not more separate but more engaged, not more comfortable but more compassionate. *(James 2:15-16; Matthew 25:35-40)*

*Concluding Blessing: _El Elyon, Jehovah Mekoddishkem, as You sanctify my being, transform my faith,* from noun to verb, from proposition to practice, from doctrine to deed. Let it be living, active, visible in how I treat the stranger, serve the broken, defend the vulnerable, forgive the offender, love the unlovely. As I journey these forty days toward the cross, let me remember that Your love was not abstract but incarnate—God with flesh, hands that healed, feet that walked dusty roads, a heart that broke for the lost. May my faith bear that same incarnational quality: present, tangible, real. Shape me into one whose life testifies not merely to what I believe, but to whom I serve. For faith that does not work through love is no faith at all—but faith that loves as You loved is the very life of heaven breaking into earth. Amen. *(Galatians 5:6; James 2:18)*

🕊️ *_“Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.”_ – James 2:18* 🕊️

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