PUSH BY FAITH

What kind of spiritual exertion are we to....well....exert anyway?  I reference our walk with God.  Is it all up to Him?  Or, all up to us?  Shared responsibility?  I send a bit of ponderment your direction for consideration.

Christians are to do work in the kingdom.  Yet, there's a subtle distraction that seems to undermine the theme of working.  We seem to transfer or translate such self-effort as if we are viewing our Bibles as a place to put our invisible savings stamps so that, when we get the book (the Bible) full, we can hope that we are saved.

This is the work-side that comes off as humanistic earning power with the hopes of persuading God that we could/should enter Heaven on that Day.  Aren't you impressed God?  See what we have done?

Yet, of course, Father puts a twist and a challenge into the biblical word work.  We are very much anticipated by Him that we will work in the Kingdom.  He wants it.  We want it.  That settles it.

Not quite.

Work is not knocking so many doors setting up Bible studies, per se.  Work is not attending church three times a week in hopes finding an Eternal Pass awaiting at Heaven's gate.  Neither is work an involvement in ministry which gives self the appearance of Kingdom connection.

These are to be questioned for one simple reason.  One can do these things without having any trust in God.  Many are in the church who know their place to sit; but do not have a relationship with the One.  Much labor goes on within and for the church which may be exercises of one's will without confidence in the Spirit that He would be engaged in any part of walk.

Not so strangely, all of the efforts above may also be mighty and powerful in content as well as effort.  The difference is, again, whether the work that we are doing is on the God-plane.  That plane?  Faith.  Faith is the work that we are required by God to do.  Without faith...without a working faith...our works are dead in their tracks.  Without faith in Him, we are possibly pursuing life in the church with faith in our own brain and brawn.

They said therefore 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 has sent."  John 6:28-29

The work that we are to do is to believe in Jesus.  This is the work requirement.  Without this commitment we will be a people who serve without prayer-prep.  We will reach out with little expectation of Jesus' participation.  Too, our walk will be undermined by distraction--easily disturbed--because we have developed a ritual of church activity rather than a confidence in the very Spirit of Christ.  There.  Is.  A.  Difference.

May we be a people who push into our communities with the labor-intensity of the Spirit's highly productive leadership, provision, and backing.  May we be wowed at what He gets done with, in, and through us.  Yet, we will always be sensitive to the truth that He is the One doing the work....not our best foot forward.

Our defining work is to believe that God works.