Created for Good Works

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Verse 10.

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” Exodus 3:14. He is the Father of all who are called children, both in heaven and on earth. He is the Creator, and we are His workmanship. He formed us from a lump of clay and breathed into our nostrils the breath of life, and we became living souls. How deeply we can rest when we let God be “I AM,” while we are what we are—namely, “His work­manship.” In that position we will easily understand much of what we would never understand if we were to establish ourselves (even if only the least bit) as an “I AM” alongside Him who formed us. It is only by the work of Satan that man comes to the conclusion that he is something. Not even as saved persons are we anything, for Christ is our life.

God cares for His workmanship; of that we can be sure. We are not only His workmanship in flesh and blood; He has also prepared beforehand what we are to accomplish in life, and this is the best proof that we are His workmanship. To His workmanship He has given the ability and the power to continue His work in the differ­ent dispensations and among the different nations. He Himself is the Protector of both the workmanship and the works that were prepared beforehand.

The Apostles’ works are fundamental for all of Christianity. They were prepared beforehand. Subsequently, God gave holy men and women to the nations. Men like Luther arose, who upset the established order by those works that had been prepared before­hand. The more these holy men entered into the works prepared beforehand, the more precious their life and work became in the eyes of God, and the more they benefited mankind.

Now it’s our turn to walk in His works and in His light. He knows the spirit of the times that we must overcome. He knew from the very outset that we would live in an age in which people, having itching ears, would accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, a time when false teachers would secretly bring in destructive heresies, a time when people would always be learning but would never come to the acknowledgment of the truth, a time when they would have a form of godliness but deny its power. (2 Timothy 4:3, 3:7; 2 Peter 2:1.)

To contend with all this wretchedness, God has prepared our works beforehand; and the more thoroughly we can expose the folly of our time by God’s light, the greater our rest will be and the more perfectly we will carry out the work that God has prepared for us.

Judgment begins with the house of God. (1 Peter 4:17.) There­fore it is our lot, first and foremost, to cast light upon those bands with which Satan binds the children of God in religious assem­blies. These loved ones of His must be set free in whatever meas­ure they are able to receive help and liberation. Alas, the majority of them are already ruined by unbelief and lack of nourishment. Down through the years, the shepherds have cared for themselves and not for the flock of God over which they were appointed. That’s why the sheep are now sitting there like petrified mummies when they hear God’s Word. To their ears it sounds like nothing but judgment. In this judgment they should have conquered every­thing that was subject to judgment, but now the Word itself is a judgment to them, because for years on end they have slept the heavy sleep of churchgoers and pew fillers.

Liberty, liberty, and still more liberty is the pretense and the cloak of hypocrisy under which the religious leaders of our day at­tempt to gather their chicks. They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. (2 Peter 2:19.) Of course, even in our day there are honorable exceptions. But who among the sheep has enough sense to allow himself to be led by these excep­tions? And when these exceptions begin preaching the “bother­some” word of the cross, it is more to the taste of carnal people to turn wherever they can get by more easily.

Liberty outside the will of God and outside the commandments of God is of the devil. Liberty outside the fellowship of Christ’s suf­ferings, outside the light, outside the cleansing of the blood leads to perdition. This kind of liberty only serves to provide an outlet for the flesh. God’s liberty, even to its outermost limits, lies within the perfect law of liberty. In this liberty we do not remain forgetful hearers; we become effectual doers. In the resulting works we are blessed. (James 1:25.) All other liberty is liberty for the flesh and relegates man to the bondage of sin.