The Lord Jesus died so that we might become truly clean. Truly worthy of Him by taking hold of His Word and Spirit, and so, being sanctified and truly brought into goodness, light, and life.

This is the true work.

Jesus’ prayer was that we would obey Him and therefore our prayers would be able to be answered. That we could do good work in this world by being worthy to be assisted by God.

The tragedy today is that so many Christians go about believing they have the blessing of God of believing their prayers to be answered, their pathway in life to be blessed, their ways all turning out for good, and heaven to be theirs, all while failing to see that ALL of these things hinge upon how we LIVE in this life. That God answers the prayers of the holy and good, “And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.” (1 John 3:22). That He blesses the ways of the person who truly labors to know the good way. And He gives heaven to those who live to be worthy of it.

If this right fear of God would be kept in our hearts, it would do much to sanctify us. As it is, we have removed this right fear of God and therefore we walk in the greatest, and darkest presumption.

We do such great evils and have no fear of truly discerning our own ways, the ways we walk in even in God’s very name. We have no fear to truly listen to the ways of our lives and to see if they are truly good in nature and conscience. We go so far as to even sear our conscience in the name of some “faith” in God’s “grace”, and destroy the work of His righteous law upon us. We even confuse this listening for the true spirit of what is good and right as somehow listening to our own hearts.

Yet faith is about listening to the true authority of what is good and what is of God, and holding ourselves accountable to this. The worldly and sinful heart does not obey this authority, but the religious heart can miss this by following a fanaticism, superstition, or doctrine of men in the place of the true Spirit of God. Where the fear of God is taken into a darkness and evil, rather than the authority to truly test the spirit of our ways and see if they are just, merciful, and good.

This is the very same darkness that existed in idolatry where fear of “God” drove the people even to burn their own children in fire.

Yet God’s purpose in Christ is light, it is to come out of all that is selfish, proud, and evil. All that is foolish and blind. And if we as Christians do not truly know this work in us, and do not therefore seek this work zealously, then we will never be light and salt. Instead, we are that noisy gong of 1 Corinthians 13, declaring how “we are light and salt” when we have none of its substance in us. We become an offense and a stench, instead of a true help and the sweet fragrance of Christ.

If only Christians would test their works, testing them with their spiritual senses, to “taste” and “smell” what substance they are of, then they would learn a great deal of wisdom and a great deal of rebuke for their ways.

The way of sin in all of us is to imagine our works are “good” when we are blind to just how foolish and sinful they really are. This is not some power of “faith in God”, it is the hard and sinful heart in all of humanity. It is to continue headstrong in our ways, never allow the true Light of God to search out the substance and nature of our ways.

Yet it is only when this substance in us is changed that we can truly serve Christ. All efforts outside of this are only born from self deception, pride, contempt of others, and utter ignorance of the true nature of sin. You cannot serve God through the arm of sin! And yet this is what so many attempt to do with their shouting and arguing, their pride and plans, their selfish ambitions and unreality. They imagine they serve God, failing to see you can never serve God with an unclean nature. Therefore the true work for God must be worked here first.