For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10)
In examining Grace and good works we are again seeing God's Grace is not only His willingness to forgive us through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, but it is also His resource for shaping and using our lives as believers.
God desires that we become amply engaged in good works, to glorify His name in the edifying of His people and the reaching of the lost. Although we are not saved by good works ("not of works, lest anyone should boast" — Ephesians 2:8-9), we are saved unto good works ("created in Christ Jesus for good works").
Our hope of abounding in good works rests upon the gracious working of God on our behalf. First, He remakes us through new birth into His Son: "created in Christ Jesus." Then, He continues to work on us, in us. We do not shape ourselves into an instrument that the Lord can use. God willingly takes that responsibility upon Himself. "For we are His workmanship." God wants to shape our lives like a work of art, thoroughly crafting us in relationship to His purposes for each of our lives.
God's gracious work extends beyond new birth and subsequent fashioning. He even prepares the good works in which He wants us to eventually be engaged. "Created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand." Think of it. The Lord has already arranged the acts of service in which He intends for us to be occupied! Then, why are we not always involved in such good works? The answer is related to this phrase: "that we should walk in them." We do have a strategic responsibility in this process. We are to humbly and dependently walk with the Lord Jesus every day.
Jesus addressed this matter. "Then they said to Him, 'What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?' Jesus answered and said to them, 'This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent'" (John 6:28-29). Exercising faith (trust with obedience) in the Lord is what brings us into the workings of God for our lives. This involves believing in His plan, as revealed in His word. This includes trusting that His will is best for us. This comprises walking in reliance upon Him, allowing Him to guide us each day into the appropriate good works. Such a response brings service empowered by Grace, as seen in the early church. "And with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great Grace was upon them all" (Acts 4:33).
What ministry is: SERVING THE LORD
"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service." (Romans 12:1)
THE FIRST thing for all of us to do is to present ourselves to God as alive from the dead, and our bodies as living sacrifices. The path of blessedness can be entered by no other gate. It is only as we refuse to be conformed to this world, and yield ourselves to be transformed by the free entrance of the Holy Spirit into our minds and hearts, that we can learn all that God will do for us. We are nothing; He is all. He is prepared to be and do all things in us, if only we will allow ourselves to be open to Him as the land lies open to the summer sun.
Those who really live the yielded life, do not need to ascertain God's Will by signs. They recognize it by the whisper of His voice and the touch of His hand. It is as we refuse to be molded by the world, and give ourselves up to the transfiguring Spirit of God, that we prove what is His good, acceptable, and perfect will. But more than that, we begin to live for others, and draw by faith from the fulness of God's Amazing Grace, that we may minister to them aright.
First, we understand what the Will of God is; then we present our bodies that it may fulfill itself through us; then we discover that it means goodwill to men, and we become the happy channels of heavenly ministry to those around us in one of the spheres enumerated in Romans 12:6-8 of this chapter. It is impossible to cherish jealousy, because the Head may use this member or that; it is equally impossible to be proud, because we have nothing that we have not received. Let us always remember that each has a special ministry to fulfill, and that we shall find in our daily lives the opportunity of fulfilling it. How many resemble the landowner of the Eastern story, who sold his property in order to go in search of diamonds, and lo! the man who purchased his property found it full of diamonds. Indeed it was the famous Golconda region. In the daily drudgery of life you will find your heavenly opportunity. How many who are pining for a great mission, will never be permitted to enter it, because they despise the low and narrow door of humble service to those in their immediate neighborhood.
But we can never realize these divine ideals of service merely by an external obedience. We must be constrained by a holy love to our Lord and to one another. What a despair these ideals would be apart from the Holy Spirit. That holy love comes from Him.
Many destroy the plans of God for their lives by pursuing their own goals and false desires because of the worldliness of their unredeemed minds. They jump in with both feet without first sitting under God listening. They run off before learning His ways and plans for the good works that He wants to do through them and thereby thwart the plans of God for His ministry to others. God does have only one way, that counts, for us all and it is up to us to wait upon the lord to learn from Him. We must know Him as a wife knows her husband and a husband knows his wife before we are able to be approved of God for His work of service to humanity that He has for us to do.
These are taken in part from Pastor Bob Hoekstra and F.B. Meyer's writings with editing by me.
