Everything about our Christian faith points us in one direction: to do good. “We are His workmanship,” Paul writes in Ephesians 2:10, “created in Christ Jesus for good works; which God has prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” (Emphasis mine.)
The simple reality is that wherever genuine believers are, immediate and dramatic good should be happening. Here’s why good works are a central part of every Christian’s life:
- We serve a good God Who does only good things. The goodness of God seems obvious to us now. But in the first century AD it was radical news. The gods of Greece and Rome were immoral and capricious. Reading Greek and Roman mythology is like watching Days of Our Lives. But the God of the Bible is different. He is good and what He does is good. Genesis 1 drives this point home over and over again, “God said…it was so…and it was good.”
- God gives us a clear definition of what is good. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul and your neighbor as yourself.” It can’t get any clearer than that.
- We enjoy good things from God. “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows,” James 1:17. There is nothing good that doesn’t come from God and everything that comes from God is good.
- Our salvation is a free gift from God. The term “free gift” is redundant. Everything free is a gift and all gifts are, by definition, free. But just to be sure “we get it,” Scripture uses the term anyway: “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord,” Romans 6:23. The one, and only one, instance where we are not to do good works is at the point of our salvation. There is nothing we can do to earn our salvation. It is a “free gift.”
- We have specific instruction from God to do good works. Pull out a concordance and look up “good works” and you’ll see passage after passage listed. Here are four of them:
- “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven,” Matthew 5:16.
- “Who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” Titus 2:14
- “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?” James 2:14
- “Let our people learn to engage in good works, to meet pressing needs, that they may not be unfruitful,” Titus 3:14
- We will receive a reward for the good works we do. Paul writes to the believers in Corinth, “If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each persons work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss yet will be saved, even though only as one escaping through the flames,” 1 Corinthians 3:12-15. There are many things about our identity in this life that we didn’t choose: our race, our sex, our parents, our IQ and much more. That doesn’t seem fair, and it isn’t. But how we spend eternity will be completely determined by our free choices and our free actions in this life. And that is the very definition of fairness. As believers, our good works now will determine how we experience heaven for eternity to come.
So tomorrow morning when you wake up, ask yourself this question: “What are the good works God has called me to do today?” Then get out of bed and do them.
This post first appeared in New Commandment.org.
What would you say are the specific good works God has been calling you to do recently?
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