James 2:19-26: in context

James presses his argument that faith without works is dead. You believe that God is one, he says; good, but the demons believe that too, and shudder. Do you want proof, foolish man, that faith without works is useless? He points to Abraham, justified by works when he offered Isaac on the altar, so that his faith was completed by his action, and the scripture was fulfilled that Abraham believed God and was counted righteous, and he was called God's friend. Even Rahab the prostitute, he adds, was justified by works when she hid the messengers and sent them out safely. For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead.

The sharp line is the one about the demons: you believe that God is one; the demons also believe, and shudder. James is exposing a kind of faith that is mere intellectual assent, agreeing that certain things about God are true, and showing that by itself it saves no one. The demons have that kind of belief; they know perfectly well that God is one, and it does them no good at all; it only makes them tremble. So bare belief, correct opinions about God held in the mind, is not the faith that saves. Real faith, James insists, is the kind that works, that shows itself in action, as Abraham's faith showed itself when he obeyed and Rahab's when she risked her life for the messengers. He is not setting faith against works, as if we were saved by our deeds; he is saying that living faith and works are inseparable, that a faith which produces nothing is as dead as a body without breath. It is a searching test. It is possible to hold all the right beliefs, to affirm the creed, to be sure God is one, and yet to have a faith no more alive than the demons', because it never moves the hands and feet. The faith that saves is not less than believing rightly, but it is more; it is a trust that acts, that obeys, that shows itself alive in what it does.

Is my faith the living kind that shows itself in action, or merely the assent that even the demons have, correct beliefs about God that never move my hands and feet, and what do my works reveal about whether my faith is alive?