Loving Christ

The book of James upholds the Christian teaching that faith alone saves, but yet adds an important caveat, namely that saving faith never remains alone. Rather, true faith brings forth fruit in the life of the one who claims to possess it. In 2:14, James asks this rhetorical question:

"What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?" (ESV). 

In the original language, this question anticipates a "no" answer. In other words, the sort of faith that does not produce works is not saving faith at all.

Emiley and I have both sincerely placed our faith in Jesus Christ for salvation; we do not believe that our good works contributed to our right standing with God, but rather that we were saved by God's grace through faith in Christ. However, now that we have been granted that salvation through faith in Christ alone, one of the ways that God is leading us to live-out that faith is by caring for the fatherless, specifically, by pursuing the adoption of an African child. Thus, the name of our blog is Faith for the Fatherless –– our faith in action for those without an earthly family. 

Earlier in his letter, James writes: 

"Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world" (1:27, ESV). 

The fact is that God cares for orphans. The Psalmist describes Him like this: 

"A father of the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy habitation" (Psalm 68:5, NKJV). 

We simply want to live our faith, practice true religion, and become more like the God who has saved us. In fact, Scripture reminds Christians that before Christ saved us, we were actually orphans ourselves, separated from the family of God by our own sin. In Paul's letter to the Galatians, he writes: 

"But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons" (Galatians 4:5, NKJV).  

Many families pursue adoption because they are unable to have natural-born children or are perhaps struggling with infertility; this is a great reason to adopt, but certainly not the only reason. Through the ministry of several Christian authors and pastors, we have come to the conviction that adoption was not God's "plan B" for bringing us into His family, but rather, adoption was God's "plan A." Before the foundation of the world, we were predestined for adoption as sons of God; then, when the fulness of the times were come, God sent His Son at a great cost to secure our place in the family of God, by adoption. The day that we heard the gracious call of God in the gospel, we received Christ, and were granted full rights as children of God and join-heirs with Jesus Christ (John 1:12). While we have no reason to doubt that we can have natural-born children in the future, we believe that God has given us a reason within the gospel itself that confirms for us why He has given us the desire to pursue adoption as our "plan A."