Working in You

Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. (Hebrews 13:20-21, NKJV).

There is deliberate tension in Scripture regarding man's responsibility, and God's ability, especially as it applies to the issue of salvation.

All religions except one, Christianity, make it the job of man to reach toward Heaven and earn God's favor. Yet the Bible makes it clear that such an endeavor is impossible, we are defeated before we even start. Therefore it was necessary that the unbridgeable gap (from mankind's perspective) be spanned by God Himself.

This was accomplished by the coming of Jesus, His perfect life, and voluntary sacrificial death. This Man satisfied God's holy and righteous wrath against sin, and enabled us, through faith in Christ, to appropriate His righteousness to ourselves – a transaction that could only have been initiated from Heaven.

We can choose to reject this bargain by refusing to believe, but we cannot negotiate any other terms; neither performance, charity, vows, rituals, other sacrifices, or anything conceivable can alter the Contract. Believe and be saved, or proceed to everlasting torment by your own hard-hearted rejection. There is no third option.

Now this is clear teaching that pervades the whole Bible, from Adam through Abraham through Moses, David, the Prophets and the entirety of the New Testament. Christ made salvation possible. He did it all, and yet...

Remember me, my God, for good, according to all that I have done for this people. Remember me, O my God, concerning this, and do not wipe out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God, and for its services! (Nehemiah 5:19; 13:14, NKJV).

And,

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; (Philippians 2:12, NKJV).

And,

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, NKJV).

And,

Do not let a widow under sixty years old be taken into the number, and not unless she has been the wife of one man, well reported for good works: if she has brought up children, if she has lodged strangers, if she has washed the saints’ feet, if she has relieved the afflicted, if she has diligently followed every good work. (1 Timothy 5:9, 10, NKJV).

And the focus verse above includes the phrase in every good work to do His will.

How do we reconcile these two seemingly contradictory emphases?

The answer pertains to the purposeful tension I mentioned above, and is best summarized by the next verse following the Philippians citation:

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12, 13, NKJV).

Do you see the balance, the expression of the perfect spiritual equation illuminating the very mind of God Himself?

Our good works done in our own strength and in our own fallen natures are like filthy rags to the God of Heaven, but the works we do indwelt and empowered by His Holy Spirit are worthy of immeasurable reward, so much so that even a glass of water given in His name reaps boundless merit.

Good works, in this most important sense, can only come after belief, because only in belief can we acknowledge our utter helplessness and complete dependence on the God of our salvation. And He, rather than we ourselves, receives the glory.

Do not make the mistake that God is therefore “hungry for credit” or “starved for glory”. That is as far from the facts as Heaven from Hell.

He knows we are incapable of goodness without being made alive again, born again, through faith in His Son. And that transformation is, by definition, His doing.

As the moon reflects the light of the sun, so we must reflect the Source of our light, or our light is darkness. Without Him, from the spiritual realm, we are in fact, invisible.

This is what Jesus meant in the Sermon on the Mount, when He told His disciples:

“The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. “But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! (Matthew 6:22, 23, NKJV).

Christ is all in all.

Everything that is not of Him will perish and burn.

Everything in Him is guaranteed never to be lost.

We do good in the eyes of God when we are truly saved, not because we have to, but because we desire to please Him out of love and gratitude rather than obligation or fear.

In providing comfort, we are emulating Him.

In providing support, we are emulating Him.

In being kind, merciful, truthful, loving, and above all, forgiving, we are emulating Him.

This is our purpose in this life. He empowers us to carry it out, something we could never do on our own.

When we are done He will take us home, not because of anything we have accomplished, but because He has accomplished everything in us.