As the preceding texts show, faith was important to Jesus, but not in isolation from works!  On the one hand, those whose deeds are good recognize Jesus and "come to the light (i.e. believe in him), so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God."   And on the other, those who have faith in Jesus, do what he teaches them to do.

Some people claim the problem isn't so much Paul's teaching as the fairly recent Lutheran and evangelical interpretation of that teaching.  But who was James arguing with, if not Paul, when he wrote his very forceful and clear repudiation of the doctrine of salvation by faith alone, without works on man's part?

One of the most famous of Paul's admirers - I'm tempted to say "worshippers" - was the great reformer, Martin Luther, whose impact on Protestantism is incalculable.  But Martin Luther made it clear that he would have preferred aNew Testament without the Epistle of James and that the only Gospel that he considered important was John's.  In Wittenberg, 1522 and in Laws, James p.1 he wrote:

We now know that the author of the Epistle of James was probably the brother of Jesus, who headed the church of Jerusalem and published his epistle about 17 years after Jesus' death.  On the other hand, we don't know who the author of the Gospel of John was, but that this was one of the last books of the bible to be written, some 60 years after Jesus died.
        So Luther favored the scripture authored by those furthest from Jesus over those closest to him.

When Martin Luther feared losing the support of the big political players of his time for his brand new church, the reformer turned his back on the peasants, and with his inflammatory address to the German nobility unleashed wholesale carnage against the peasantry: "choke, stab and kill, and if you die, take comfort, you do the work of God."  And when in 1541 he supervised in person the drowning of a five year old "devil�s child" in the Zwickauer Mulde, a river in Saxony, Luther may really have thought of it as a high point in his lifelong wrestling match with the devil. 
        It is not, as if he didn't know what he was doing. "Yes, their blood is on me, but I put it in the hands of our Lord, who made me do it" (Martin Luther, "Table-Conversations").  Luther believed to have an excuse for rejecting even the remotest responsibility for his own actions, and he explicitly based this attitude on his "faith".  In the preface to his bible translation Martin Luther placed little value on the synoptic gospels, �to know Christ's works and His life's story is not the same thing as to know the gospel, because it does not mean that you know that He conquered sin, death, and the devil.�

The idea of salvation by faith alone, with grace on god's part replacing works on man's part, may appear to make Jesus more deserving of praise, love, admiration and appreciation.  But Jesus Christ didn't teach it; and for good reason.  (It was either Martin Luther or John Calvin who deliberately "improved" Paul's words "the just shall live by faith" by adding the word "alone." )  This theory makes Christ out to be like the pilot of the air plane to heaven.  All you have to do is "believe", i.e. trust him, and climb aboard, and he will do the rest.  You might as well go to sleep and "leave the flying to Jesus"; because you are saved the minute you "believe", and you are guaranteed a seat not just for the trip but for an eternity in heaven as well.  According to this theory, Jesus has paid for your ticket with his own blood.  Although Jesus is the only man who has ever lived a blameless life, God has allowed this one sinless person to suffer the punishment for everybody else's sins.
        If you believe that teaching, then you are putting your faith in Paul, not in christ.  What Christ taught was that salvation is very demanding, and that - far from carrying your cross for you - Jesus requires that you pick up your own cross daily and follow him.  Believing in him is not an end in itself, it's simply the step that puts one on the right road, the road of obedience to Christ, which leads to eternal life.
        Do you know why there were so few Christian voices raised in opposition to Hitler, not just during the Holocaust, but in the many years leading up to it?   Lutheran pastor and scholar Dietrich Bonhoeffer thought long and hard about the failure of the Christian community in Germany and then wrote the powerful book The Cost of Discipleship.  His rare understanding of the teaching of Christ moved him to raise a lonely voice against the attrocities being perpetrated in a supposedly Christian nation and, like Christ, he was put to death for doing so.
        His insights may explain why many things go wrong in supposedly Christian communities and individuals:
        "Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves . . .  the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession.  Cheap grace is grace without discipleship . . .
        Costly grace is the grace which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock . . .  It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life." ( See the whole web page I dedicate to Bonhoeffer's "Cost of Discipleship" at www.LiberalsLikeChrist.Org/about/cheapgrace.html.)
        Is it merely a coincidence that the region of America where Fundamentalism reigns supreme, the region called "the Bible belt", is the region that for hundreds of years practiced and even blessed the slavery of dark skinned human beings from Africa by light skinned "Christian"human beings from Europe?  Or is it connected with their feeling that "works don't matter"?  If God doesn't save on the basis of good works, then can he condemn on the basis of bad works?

Those who have held with Paul�s view that it is faith and not works that lead to salvation have found it necessary to denigrate the value of Jesus� teaching. They claim that since Jesus� teachings about moral action are impossible for anyone (other than Jesus) to comply with perfectly, that His teachings are nothing more than an example meant to show us how imperfect we all are and how salvation for such imperfect beings is impossible except through the saving grace of faith.
        An example of this can be found in the following quotations from the German Lutheran theologian, Carl Stange :

Not even a disastrous civil war was able to move the hard hearts of so-called "Bible belt Christians" to stop persecuting their former slaves.  They simply invented new ways to oppress their former victims, through the enthusiastic public practices of segregation and the only slightly less public practices of the lynch-mobs and the Ku Klux Klan, where all kinds of "respectable" gentlemen and even "clergy" hid beneath white sheets to kill, maim and terrify black people.
        See what passes for "Christian" theology in communities and denominations that have their roots in "the Bible belt", otherwise known as "Dixie", or "the Confederate States of America" : JesusWouldBeFurious.Org/about/christianconservatism.html.
        Is it merely a coincidence that when the Democratic Party turned its back on its former racism, many Bible Belt "Christians" - who had hated the Republican Party so long because it represented "the party of Lincoln" - hastened to switch their allegiance to that party as soon as it had turned itself inside out, and lapped up the racist attitudes which the Democratic Party had vomited?
        Is it merely a coincidence that the "Christian Conservatives" of "the Bible belt" now oppose Affirmative Action and promote school vouchers - which will restore well-financed private (and segregated) "Christian" schools for their own white children, while leaving minorities in increasingly neglected "public" schools?
        Is it merely a coincidence that the states where Conservatives are strongest are the ones with the most minorities in prison,the most minorities being put to death, the most incidences of prison brutality, and the most instances of minorities often being deprived of their right to vote for life, (despite Jesus' warning that when we neglect those in prison, it is him whom we are hurting)?

There's some evidence that Paul himself wouldn't agree with the view that seems to be expressed in many excerpts of Paul that play down the importance of "works" and which are constantly quoted by Fundamentalists.  Here's is what he wrote, for example in

"Do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God?  Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience?  Do you not realize that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?   But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God's righteous judgment will be revealed.  For he will repay according to each one's deeds:  to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life;  while for those who are self-seeking and who obey not the truth but wickedness, there will be wrath and fury.
        There will be anguish and distress for everyone who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek.  For God shows no partiality.  All who have sinned apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.  For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God's sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified.  When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves.  They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all."

"All of us must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive recompense for what has been done in the body, whether good or evil."

There are a lot more problems with Paul's teaching than just the matter of faith vs. works.  While Jesus of Nazareth preached and modelled by his behavior love, understanding, respect for all kinds of people, much - though not all - of Paul's teaching is very different, as you can read in his own words at http://www.LiberalsLikeChrist.Org/PaulvsAll.html.