"Alive for God"

"My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise Thee with joyful lips:" (Psalms 63:5) I am sorry if I made you uncomfortable yesterday; God was really speaking to my heart about some issues, and I must admit, it felt pretty good to get some things cleared up. The point I think that James was making is much more than charity or compassion, although those are important components of the fruit of the Holy Spirit; it's really more about having the mind of Christ, where you are thinking about how Jesus would handle each and every situation. I think that this verse speaks of two very important traits that go with doing what Jesus would do; primarily, what can I do for others, and does it please the Father? It is really quite simple to figure out that Jesus never really did anything to gain anything for Himself, with maybe one small exception, which was the borrowed colt, and even that was done to fulfill prophecy; in other words, He never did anything to receive personal gain, it was always about bringing glory to His Father. I see the first part of this verses meaning something more than just being "satisfied", because the word speaks more about being filled, as in not needing more than you have been given. To see how this might work, you could consider two totally different questions that you could ask yourself when it comes to doing something for others: What can I get out of this? or What can I do with what I have been given? One considers how I might gain something from what I will do, while the other wants to do something with what I have gained. It all belongs to the Lord anyways, so doesn't it make the most sense to use it in that regard? But you also need to accompany your generosity with the proper attitude, one that gives the glory to God and does not take the glory upon yourself. "Oh, look how generous I am", is not what you want to come off looking like; it more about, "The Lord has blessed me with this, so that I might share it with you; isn't God so good!" I know, you probably don't go around looking for opportunities to say that, but if you did, you really would not have any trouble finding any. You know, I think when it comes to judgement, the Lord is going to judge us more for the things that we did not do right, then He will for the things we did that were wrong; in other words, what you do with what you have been given will be far more important to the Lord than if you sinned here or there; besides, He died for those sins, but He rose to make you alive for God...
"Now someone may argue, "Some people have faith; others have good deeds." But I say, "How can you show me your faith if you don't have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds." You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror. How foolish! Can't you see that faith without good deeds is useless? Don't you remember that our ancestor Abraham was shown to be right with God by his action when he offered his son Isaac on the alter? You see, his faith and his actions worked together. His actions made his faith complete. And so it happened just as the Scriptures say: "Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith." He was even called the friend of God. So you see, we are shown to be right with God by what we do, not by faith alone. Rahab the prostitute is another example. She was shown to be right with God by her actions when she hid those messengers and sent them away by a different road. Just as the body is dead without breath, so also faith is dead without good works." (James 2:18-26) NLT