The Marriage of Faith and Works
First15 Devotional
First15
4.9 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 8 June 2021
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In today’s devotional, we’re going to look together at the marriage of faith and works. One of my greatest struggles is working with God rather than for God. God cares deeply about our work, our impact in this life, but not because he needs us to serve him or work for him, but because he wants to work with us. He wants to give us a picture of his goodness and love at work in the lives of others, and he wants to deepen our relationship with him by identifying and empowering us in our unique calling.
May we gain revelation today that would stick, that would transform our understanding and deepen our experience of the connection, the relationship between faith and works.
Our Scripture for today comes from James 2:26, and today's worship is For Your Glory by Craig and Rachel Denison.
Check out our Worship for the Weekday playlist on Spotify!
________
As believers, we want a real connection with God every day, not just on Sunday. We want the peace and passion that comes from living with God, not for God. But when Monday morning rolls around we’re left thinking:
“Now what?” “How do I find and keep a daily connection with my Creator on my own?”
At First15, we know that meaningful worship isn’t just for Sunday. Every believer should be able to find a daily connection to God with fresh worship created specifically for their weekday.
_____
First15 is a daily devotional written and recorded by Craig Denison. If you would like to learn more about the First15 app, books, blogs, videos and our other resources, please visit first15.org. You can always reach out to us on our contact page on the website.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | In today's first of team podcast, we're going to look together at the marriage of faith and works. |
| 0:10.0 | One of my greatest struggles is working with God rather than for God. |
| 0:15.0 | God cares deeply about our work, our impact in this life, |
| 0:19.0 | but not because He needs us to serve him or work for him, |
| 0:22.5 | but because he wants to work with us. He wants to give us a picture of his goodness and love |
| 0:27.8 | at work in the lives of others, and he wants to deepen our relationship with him by identifying |
| 0:33.9 | and empowering us in our unique calling. May we gain revelation today that would stick, |
| 0:40.1 | that would transform our understanding |
| 0:41.8 | and deepen our experience of the connection, |
| 0:44.7 | the relationship between faith and works. |
| 0:47.5 | Welcome to the First of Team podcast. Our verse for today comes from James 2.26. |
| 1:08.0 | Scripture says, for as the body apart from the Spirit is dead, |
| 1:13.6 | so also faith apart from works is dead. |
| 1:19.6 | Work typically has a negative connotation in my mind. |
| 1:22.6 | I associate work with something I have to do, but don't feel like doing. |
| 1:28.3 | I separate out work from play or fun. |
| 1:31.3 | But with God, the word work couldn't be more different. |
| 1:35.3 | Work is designed to be the expression of our abundant, life-giving relationship with our Heavenly Father. |
| 1:42.3 | God doesn't call us to work out of obligation or to earn |
| 1:46.5 | his love, but to live our lives in response to his love. It's for this reason that Scripture is |
| 1:53.3 | clear about God's intention for the marriage of faith and works. James 226 says, for as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead. |
| 2:06.6 | What is our faith if it doesn't produce action? |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from First15, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of First15 and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.