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How much do you love me?  How much do I love you?  Perhaps to soften the blow of this question I will instead ask us all collectively, “How much do you love your brother or sister in Christ?”

Depending on the context, most of us would quickly gush with hyperbolic affirmations of our love for one another.  We could each likely go on to list specific ways in which we do and reasons why we do.  But when it comes to the context (or perhaps better said as ‘application’) of will you take the time and effort to know your brother well enough to notice when he has wandered from the truth?…will you care enough that he has wandered from the truth…will you graciously, gently, humbly go after him when he wanders from the truth?...will you rightly love him as he wanders and after he returns?

James has been writing about the KIND of faith that saves, while maintaining that it is faith alone THAT saves.  He has instructed on how to evaluate such faith and how such a faith will keep us from wandering from the truth.  This then is why he pens this very fitting conclusion to his letter.  Knowing that we are still sinners, in a lifelong process of sanctification, there will be times when we will wander.  But we should be able to take comfort that we have genuine brothers and sisters to whom we have covenanted ourselves who will love us enough to come and bring us back.

As believers in Jesus Christ we must know the truth and be faithful to the truth.  As believers we must know our brother and be faithful to our brother.  What is it that you need to do to make these statements true of you?