In 1988, Nike launched the brilliant Just do it campaign. With this campaign, Nike persuaded all age groups, all races, people who exercised and even those who did not to buy their products. And if you look around, you notice shoes with that little tick all over the place.

Who came up with this slogan? I wonder if that person was reading James at the time.

If someone asked me to summarise James’ letter, I would do it in three words: Just do it! If you say you believe, you have to do it. It’s no use saying you believe if your actions are not aligned with your faith.

When your actions don’t tell the story of your faith, your faith is surrounded by question marks. Is your faith at all genuine? That’s why James then says your faith is dead.

¹⁴Dear friends, do you think you’ll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it?

Just talking about faith is utterly meaningless. To sit and chat with others about what you believe in and how wonderful it is to have faith, while this is not reflected in your actions, doesn’t mean much.

On the contrary, James goes as far as confronting us with another question:

¹⁷ Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?

We know the answer to the question. Unfortunately, such faith is useless because it’s nothing but fluff. When you touch it, it falls apart and disappears like mist before the sun.

Let’s approach faith from the other side. You’ll find genuine faith if you see good deeds and the person acknowledges that they have accepted Jesus. But if you look at it from the opposite perspective, where someone says they believe, but there are no actions, it’s simply fluff.

Faith with value, faith that’s true, faith that’s real, result in actions. That’s the default. That’s the consequence. The automatic result of faith is that it is reflected in your efforts.

If not, it remains fluff and disappears into thin air, and you will surely not be saved.

Let’s make sure our faith and actions are aligned. Let’s do our faith. Yes, just do it.

Scripture
James 2:14-26

Reflection
What does your faith look like?
How do your actions look?
Do you just do it?

Prayer
Father, I believe in You. I believe Jesus is my Saviour. It’s all part of my faith. But, yes, sometimes my actions fail and do not truly reflect what I believe. I’m sorry. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.