The work of God is faith in Christ

Life in Christ is meant by the Lord to be not the hard thing we so often make it to be. Living in this world as Christians becomes very difficult apart from Christ. There is a block to things. . . even the simplest things become laboured and confused if we try to sustain a Christian life in this world apart from a living union with the living Christ. How much frustration there is about things when thru the resources of the soul alone one tries to follow Christ. . . how much desperation and scrambling to get on top of things, to be right about things, and often even more so even as the Spirit testifies that the way forward is not the way chosen. How rebellious is the soul apart from Christ.

The promise of Christ is that there is a way forward that is without confusion and those struggles that we find as we seek to follow Him on our own resources. The testimony of those persecuted for their faith is that in spite of opposition and hardships and troubles in this world, that there is peace and joy in the midst of things for those who remain faithful. . . that despite the hardest of circumstances there is a life in the Lord Jesus that means peace and hope and a going on with the Lord and a going thru to God. It is only found in Christ. . . He who offers, “Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matt. 28) There is a peace about things as one faithfully follows Christ thru all things the Lord leads one into.

Apart from a living union in Christ, it is so easy to fall back on our own resources and strike out on our own, to follow what we think best, to do things for the Lord, all the while apart from Him. . . knowing the Lord isn’t necessarily following Him. How much of our lives here are taken up with trying to do things for God apart from Christ? And at the end of all the efforts. . . how utterly frustrating, how little fruit and of no real account with the Lord.

Missions work has become so much more than God intended or has blessed. In the hands of men, there are missions organizations, programs and colleges and degrees. . . with the intention of being a work for God. Having seen in the Bible a goal, something has been taken up for God but apart from Christ. Not that there is no spread of the gospel thru His Church. . . the testimony and faithful witness of Christ in His followers has meant new disciples and an increase of the Kingdom in this world. But Missions often becomes a thing more of man than of God. Paul wrote, “But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. . .” (2 Cor. 1). The simplest, most uneducated, follower of Jesus - although persecuted and suffering – who yet remains faithful, who can love their persecutor, who remains true in Christ and to Christ, has a testimony and impact in this world that no degree can give.

Men asked Jesus what they should do to be doing the work of God. Jesus’ answer was, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” (John 6) The work of God is that Christ would be received in His people, that in a genuine way, what is true about us, at the heart of what we are, is Him. The work of God – the work of His Spirit in manifesting Christ – is that He would have something true of Himself in this world, in a people who bear His image, who in an ever-increasing way are transformed into His likeness and come into fuller measures of Christ.

The work of God in this world has become about so much more that is other than what God intends. Receiving Christ and bearing witness to Him as we follow Him and are faithful in our lives here is the work of God. There is a triumph in Christ now as we faithfully follow the Lord thru all things.