While good works certainly cannot save us, they are the result and manifestation of God saving us. In fact, we’re told, “We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10, NIV).
Notice that this verse doesn’t say that God prepared doctrines for us to believe (as important as they are) but works for us to accomplish. In fact, God has a literal lifetime of good works laid out for us. Instead of burdening us, this should excite us! He has purposes, sometimes hidden, in every person and opportunity that crosses our paths.
A recent viral video shows an 18-year-old high school graduate, Jordan Hope, giving an elderly man the shoes off his own feet. Jordan was on the way to the bank when he saw the man struggling to walk across a parking lot in broken shoes.
“I just felt like God told me to go over there, turn around and just give him some new slides,” Jordan said. “So I took off my own shoes. I gave them to him, and I just felt like I brought maybe a peace in his life.”
Jordan didn’t know a woman had filmed what happened in the parking lot, and shared it on Facebook, where Jordan was later identified. She wrote, “Watching this young man take the shoes off his own feet and give them to an older man who needed them truly touched my heart.”
Jordan had driven away after the initial encounter, but felt compelled to turn around, where he found the elderly man inside Walgreen’s. He paid for the man’s purchase, and then took his new friend to lunch, where he learned that his wife had died recently. Jordan has stayed in touch with “Mr. Roy,” and even started a GoFundMe to raise funds for his groceries and other expenses.
“I knew a tug pulled on my heart, and it was definitely from God,” Jordan said, who credited his parents, youth pastor and faith when he was interviewed. “He interrupted my plans for that day to carry on His plans.”
This story reminds me of a time my wife, Nanci, met an elderly man at the supermarket who asked her where to find flour. “I don’t know my way around here,” he explained. “My wife did all the shopping, and she died last month.”
Nanci felt God’s prompting to give him one of my books on Heaven, but they were in the car. So she prayed she would see him later in the very large parking lot. No sooner did she get to our car than she saw an elderly man wheeling his cart in her direction. She reached for one of my books, handed it to him, and said, “Are you the one whose wife recently passed away?”
He said, “Well, yes, my wife died three months ago. We were married forty-nine years.” Suddenly Nanci realized it wasn’t the same man. But he was clearly grateful to receive the book, and Nanci felt certain he would read it. (Perhaps all the more because a total stranger seemed to know his wife had recently died!)
Since God is sovereign and is the orchestrator of divine appointments, Nanci knew her act of love was intended for this man after all. When we allow ourselves to be vessels of God’s generosity and love, those on the receiving end experience joy, and we experience the pleasure of seeing God at work through us.
Sadly, many Christians have come to think of works as a dirty word. It isn’t! True, God condemns works done to try to earn salvation or to impress others (Isaiah 64:6; Hebrews 9:14). But our Lord enthusiastically commends good works done for the right reasons (Matthew 6:4). James wrote, “Faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless. . . . If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom” (James 2:17; 3:13, NLT).
Where we spend eternity, whether Heaven or Hell, depends on the object of our faith. But our works demonstrate the authenticity of our faith. One of the mental hurdles some of us must get past is understanding the difference between salvation by faith and serving God by works. Let me be clear: Salvation is 100 percent about God’s work for us. No work can save us except the work Christ did on the cross on our behalf. But because He has endowed us with Christ’s righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21), we can now do works that please God and for which he is glad to reward us. In fact, Jesus “will reward each person according to what they have done” (Matthew 16:27, NIV).
Scripture says of the church, Christ’s bride, “‘Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.’ (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God’s holy people.)” (Revelation 19:8, NIV). In a book I wrote years ago, one of my editors deleted that parenthetical statement about righteous acts, thinking I’d made it up and it was bad theology. He had no idea he was deleting God’s inerrant words!
God would not promise us rewards if He didn’t want us to have or desire them. And He wouldn’t promise to reward our works unless He truly valued them.
Because God created us in His likeness, we follow His example when we do good works. Christ-followers do good works out of a heart of love but also “so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive” (Titus 2:10, NIV). Our goodness and generosity point others to the goodness and generosity of our God.
