The Christian’s Work – Believing and Yielding

The following article is from the book – Living in the Heavenly Realms – under the above chapter title.

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. (Eph. 2:10)

There are two basic elements needed in the relationship between Christ and the believer if God’s eternal purposes are to be fulfilled: the first is communion and the second is cooperation. There can never be true love in any relationship without both communion and cooperation.

Throughout eternity the Son has shared with His Father in the eternal life within the Trinity—that is communion. And when God initiated His wondrous plan of redemption the Son offered Himself as both the Lamb to be slain and as the Intercessor for man—that is cooperation. Similarly, if we are to live as Jesus did, we must enter into this same shared life where there is both an ongoing communion with God in His heavenly life and an offering of ourselves to be used for His purposes.

We must remember that we were specifically created as vessels that God could use to display His life and works in this world. Our one great role is to choose to cooperate with Him so that we may do the “good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

The spiritual man apprehends this truth and appreciates the significance of it. If he is to be fully trained and become like his Master, he sees the need for permitting the Son to live through him. It involves giving the Spirit of God complete possession of his being so that Christ may have full control and unhindered use.

Only when the temple of the body is entirely set apart for God’s purposes—fully consecrated—is it possible to be filled with His Glory. This is what brings the child of God into an experiential knowledge of life in the Trinity, where there is never-ending communion and cooperation with the Lord of Glory.

At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you {with everyone sharing in the same life and will}. (John 14:20)

Those who believe in Jesus will yield to every movement of His Spirit. This is the real meaning of faith. It involves dying to the old self-directed way of life. We must be prepared to be as easily moved as a leaf in an open field by the slightest changes in the wind. We surrender ourselves completely to the life that was in Jesus and look to Him in faith to do through us what He has purposed.

The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes {next}. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit. (John 3:8)

My sheep hear My voice…and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life… (John 10:27-28)

Our work is to yield to Truth and the leading of His Spirit while believing in Him. As the Father did everything through the Son, He is the One who must produce all the good results through our lives. This kind of dependent and trusting faith always receives the reality of what has been promised in the Scriptures.

Then they said 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 sent.” (John 6:28-29)

Given time, the Lord will manifest His life and works through the members of His body. He waits until we have come to the end of ourselves. His purpose is to bring us to the place where we cease from our own works and begin living by His Spirit alone. It is then that He is able to manifest His life and works in a way that reveals how He is the source of what is being done. He then receives all the glory.

But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God. (John 3:21)