A good deed is never lost

A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love. (Saitt Basil)

What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone? Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, “Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well”—but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do? So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless. (James 2:17-17)

A man by his deeds - what we do matters more than whatever it is we 'plan' to do, doesn't it? We make all kinds of grand plans, but we seldom carry them out to fruition, at least not to full fruition. The small plans acted upon lead to greater plans, until one day, we see 'full fruition' of the plans we have submitted to God and listened to his direction in completing.

Faith is revealed in our actions, not gained by those actions. We don't work our way into God's 'good graces' - we do good works because of what his grace has already done within us! We want to reveal Christ through our actions - we are 'motivated' to bless others because of the tremendous blessings we have received in Christ Jesus. 

A good deed is never lost. Those words really ring truer that we might imagine. Do we 'do' what we promise to 'do'? Promises made in haste are often never acted upon, at least not fully. We need to be careful with our promises but ensure that we always act upon those we have made. A good deed promised is 'counted on' by the one who receives the promise, isn't it?

God's intent is for his children to reveal Christ in their actions because Christ is the center of their lives. We might not realize just how much our actions begin to change the world around us until we see one good deed followed by another and another. After a while, the world around us is affected by our faith - faith put into action in various 'small deeds' that might just reveal a much bigger blessing in someone's life than we ever imagined! Just sayin!