Ready for Every Good Work ...

Wed, Dec 30, 2015. Are you ready for good work? Are you ready for doing good? If someone asks me such a question, I turn around and go away. Leave me alone! I have enough things to care for, just let me do what is needed. Others do the same, but they also think: again someone who wants to put loads of things onto me, … ethics …, where is the joy and fun of life?

What type of alternative? …

Is the alternative between joy and ethics? Is it between fun and unpleasant work? Or is it more between good behavior and bad behavior? Between joy and hate. Between satisfaction and emptiness? Often, when we try to have full life, in fact we try to cover our emptiness. We try to avoid being unimportant. We think that others have more, we envy their success and their possessions. Why? Are we not personalities of our own right and value?

Recently I have read about the history of “Brockhaus”, the great encyclopedia, who has lost with the rise of Wikipedia and the internet. Things change, and fortune changes. But people are still of value! What is it you make your value depend on? Is it the success of your current business? Are you depending on the waves of this time? There is a much better way, and a value which goes much beyond!

When we read the lines which the apostle Paul wrote to Titus, we might be drawn into some purely ethical thinking, about moral and to-do's. But it is more about what we value, and how we value others. It is more about becoming heirs of grace, than about a set of moral rules. The good works we talk about are love and peace and joy and appreciation. They are also truth and a sincere treatment of others, with their good or bad behavior.

Goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior …

1 Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, 2 to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people. 3 For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. 4 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3, 1-7)

The New Testament formulates the invitation to you and to me to believe in Christ Jesus. It is the invitation to be renewed by the Holy Spirit, to be come a child of grace. It is the invitation to become heir of grace, to be a prince of peace. There could not be greater value than this, and greater achievement.

To become ready for good works cannot be achieved by mere decision. You need to be transformed, you need to be changed in your heart. The love of God needs to take over, his grace needs to reign in your heart and in your mind. Then, when this happens, you are ready to go, and walk in the good works which he has prepared already for you to live in. And it will be very good, full of joy and wonder. (RWEP) ... more texts