Ephesians 2:10, John 17:4
We are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
(Jesus said, as should we) "I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do."
Titus 2:14 (KJV)
(Christ Jesus) gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
We do not do good works in order to be saved (Isaiah 64:6, Romans 3:28), but because (and evidence that) we are saved (faith in action - Matthew 5:16, John 15:16, Acts 26:20b, James 2:22-24, 1 Thessalonians 1:3); and because we will one day answer to our Lord and Savior for our actions (Matthew 16:27, 1 Corinthians 3:13 & 4:5, 2 Corinthians 5:10, Romans 14:10, Hebrews 4:13).
Because God the Father determines the outcome (Philippians 2:13), our concern is to glorify Him in the process (Colossians 3:17 "Do it in the name of Jesus" and v. 23 "Work with all your heart, as working for the Lord...").
Thomas a' Kempis on Matthew 25:31-46 (See Isaiah 58:6-7)
At the Day of Judgment, we shall not be asked what we have read, but what we have done.
John Calvin Institutes, Book III on James 2
Those who by true faith are righteous prove their righteousness by obedience and good works, not by a bare and imaginary mask of faith. An empty show of faith does not justify, and a believer, not content with such an image, declares his righteousness by his good works.
Thomas Watson A Body of Practical Divinity
"The Application of Redemption"
Faith sanctifies works and works testify of faith.
On Psalm 86:11 “Teach me Your ways, O Lord, that I may live according to Your truth!”
Let us lead Scripture lives. Oh, that the Bible might be seen to be printed in our lives! Obedience is an excellent way of commenting upon the Bible. Let the Word be the sun-dial by which you set your life.
The Beatitudes
O adore free grace, triumph in this love! Spend and be spent for the Lord. Lay out yourselves in thankfulness.
C.H. Spurgeon, Sermon No. 769 "Serving The Lord With Gladness", Sept. 8, 1867
The child of God works not for life, but from life; he does not work to be saved, he works because he is saved.
John Stott Reading Ephesians on Ephesians 2:1-10
Good works are indispensable to salvation - not as its ground or means, but as its consequence and evidence.
D. Marty Lloyd-Jones Studies in the Sermon on the Mount
A Christian is something before he does anything; and we have to be Christian before we can act as Christians.
Ezra 7:10 (Revelation 22:7)
Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the Lord, and to do it...
2 Corinthians 9:8 (HCSB)
God is able to make every grace overflow to you, so that in every way, always having everything you need, you may excel in every good work.
Philippians 4:9
Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me - put it into practice.
Galatians 6:10
As we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.
1 Thessalonians 1:3
We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.
2 Thessalonians 1:11-12 (NLT)
We always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
2 Thessalonians 2:16-17
May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.
Titus 3:14
Our people must learn to devote themselves to doing what is good...
Hebrews 6:10 (NLT)
God ...will not forget how hard you have worked for Him and how you have shown your love to Him by caring for other believers.
Hebrews 10:24 (ESV)
Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works...
(NLT) ...motivate one another to acts of love and good works.
James 1:22, 2:18b
Do not merely listen to the word...do what it says. Show (your) faith by what (you) do.
Martin Luther’s 99 Propositions
We do not become righteous by doing what is righteous; but having become righteous, we do what is righteous.
William Tyndale’s preface to Exodus
If any man ask me, seeing faith justifies me, why I work, I answer, love compelleth me; for as long as my soul feeleth what love God hath showed me in Christ, I cannot but love God again, and His will and commandments.
Matthew Henry, An Exposition of All the Books of the Old and New Testaments, on Psalm 37:1-6
Good men are more solicitous and desirous to know the duty that is to be done by them, than to know the events that shall be concerning them; for duty is ours, events are God's.
William Gurnall The Christian in Complete Armour
We must come to good works by faith, and not to faith by good works.
Thomas Manton on James 1:27 "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."
A great fruit and token of piety is provision for the afflicted. In the 25th of Matthew you see acts of charity fill up the bill. Works of mercy do well become them that do expect or have received mercy from God. This is to be like God (and) one of the chief glories in the Godhead is the unweariedness of his love and bounty. He visits the fatherless and the widows, so should we. The spirit of our religion is for giving; and therefore the cruel hard heart is a kind of denying the faith (1 Timothy 5:8).
Thomas Brooks Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices
https://www.monergism.com/precious-remedies-against-satans-devices
Your life is short, your duties many, your assistance great, and your reward sure. Therefore faint not, hold on and hold up, in ways of well-doing…
Richard Baxter Christian Directory "Christian Economics"
Do not only take occasions of doing good when they are thrust upon you; but study how to do all the good you can, as those "that are zealous of good works." Zeal of good works will make you plot and contrive for them; consult and ask advice for them; it will make you glad when you meet with a hopeful opportunity; it will make you do it largely, and not sparingly, and by the halves; it will make you do it speedily, without unwilling backwardness and delay; it will make you do it constantly to your lives' end. It will make you labor in it as your trade, and not consent that others do good at your charge. It will make you glad, when good is done, and not to grudge at what it cost you. In a word, it will make your neighbours to be to you as yourselves, and the pleasing of God to be above yourselves, and therefore to be as glad to do good as to receive it.
Jonathan Edwards on Deuteronomy 15:7-11
It is not merely a commendable thing for a man to be kind and bountiful to the poor, but our bounden duty, as much a duty as it is to pray, or to attend public worship, or any thing else whatever; and the neglect of it brings great guilt upon any person.
Alexander Maclaren
Expositions of Holy Scripture on Matthew 14:16b “You give them something to eat.”
Ability involves responsibility. Power to (do) is duty (to do).
Sermons Preached in Union Chapel, Manchester, 1859 on Luke 16:10
Faithfulness measures acts as God measures them. Duty is duty, conscience is conscience, right is right, and wrong is wrong, whatever sized type they be printed in. Large and small are not words for the vocabulary of conscience. It knows only two words – right and wrong.
Charles Kingsley, “The Saints Tragedy”, Conrad, Act IV, Scene 1
https://books.google.com/books?id=2p5EAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA13&dq
Have thy tools ready; God will find thee work-
Then up, and play the man.
Fix well thy purpose.
J.C. Ryle
"Occupy Till I Come" on Luke 19:13
http://www.biblebb.com/files/ryle/occupy_till_i_come.htm
Holiness
Tell me not of your justification — unless you have also some marks of sanctification. Boast not of Christ's work for you — unless you can show us the Spirit's work in you.
Practical Religion, 1878, “Happiness”, p. 215
https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/ryle/Practical%20Religion%20-Ryle.pdf
If you would have an increase of happiness in Christ's service, "labor every year to do more good." Look around the circle in which you live your life, and determine to be useful. Strive to be of the same character with God: He is not only good, but "does good" (Psalm 119:68). Alas there is far too much selfishness among believers in the present day! There is far too much lazy sitting by the fire nursing our own spiritual diseases, and growling over the state of our own hearts.
Get up; and be useful in your day and generation! Is there no one in all the world that you can read the Bible to? Is there no one that you can speak to about Christ? Is there no one that you can write to about Christ? Is there literally nothing that you can do for the glory of God, and the benefit of your fellow-men? Oh I cannot think it! I cannot think it. There is much that you might do, if you had only the will. For your own happiness' sake, arise and do it, without delay.
Phillips Brooks “The Beauty Of A Life Of Service” on John 8:31-36, 1893
https://books.google.com/books?id=yGsNAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA9&lpg
God frees our souls, not from service, not from duty, but into service and into duty, and he who makes mistakes the purpose of his freedom mistakes the character of his freedom.
It is our (duty) to study how we shall come into the midst of the purposes of God and have the unspeakable privilege in these few years of doing something of His work.
Henry Blackaby Experiencing God
Watch where God is at work, and join Him there. (John 5:17,19)
A.B. Simpson
This is the true secret of power for service - the heart filled and satisfied with Jesus and so baptized with the Holy Spirit that it is impelled by the fullness of its joy and love to impart to others what it has so abundantly received. And yet each new ministry only makes room for a new filling and a deeper receiving of the life which grows by giving.
F.B. Meyer Our Daily Walk
What we accomplish is comparatively unimportant, but how we do what we do is all-important.
June 14 on Matthew 25:24
The one thing that our Lord demands of each of us is to be faithful, even in a very little. He is watching each of us with great eagerness as we live our daily life, because He knows, as we cannot realise, how much our position in the other world depends on our fidelity in this. It is for our sake that He is so anxious that we should make good use of our one talent.
O Lord, at the end of every day, may we stand before Thee to hear Thy verdict, and when all the toil and labour of our life is ended, may we hear Thee say: "Well done, good and faithful servant! thou hast been faithful in a few things, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord"
July 4 on John 6:5
If you have no great gift to offer Him, you can bring the special power of doing one thing best.
St. Augustine on Psalm 35:27
Whatever thou dost, do well, and thou hast praised God.
September 1 on Proverbs 4:23
The only work that tells must cost you something.
September 11 on Matthew 25:44
Moses says that it is wrong to do wrong; Jesus that it is wrong not to do right.
John Phillips, Exploring the Gospel of Mark: An Expository Commentary, on Mark 4:32 (When the mustard seed)…“is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”
Everywhere the kingdom of God has gone, it has brought with it hospitals and schools; truth, morality, and ethics; decency and compassion; and, above all, salvation. Wherever the gospel has gone, it has abolished cannibalism (John G. Paton), child sacrifice (at the Hindu festival of Gunga Sagor) and the immolation of widows (William Carey), polygamy, demon worship, slavery (William Wilberforce), and a thousand other such ills. It has built orphanages and asylums, cared for the sick, comforted the bereaved, and helped the infirm. Even the unsaved have found shelter beneath its branches and found comfort and a better life in its shade.
Preface to Sermons on Job, translated by Rob Roy McGregor, The Banner of Truth Trust, 2022
Spirit-inspired righteous deeds performed in real time are the productive efforts that contribute to Christ’s eternal glory, which is the singular work of the Holy Spirit himself, the perfecting of the Body of Christ, the Church Triumphant, as portrayed in the image of the Bride of Christ, whose ‘fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints’ (Revelation 19:8).
Do all the good you can—to all the people you can—in all the ways you can—and as long as you can.
Falsely attributed to John Wesley, “The Law Established Through Faith”
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Neither is love content with barely working no evil to our neighbour. It continually incites us to do good: as we have time, and opportunity, to do good in every possible kind, and in every possible degree to all men.
Rowland Williams Psalms and Litanies, Counsels and Collects for Devout Persons, 1872
Though we know not what is best, give to us, Lord, what Thou seest fit; only fit us for what Thou givest, and let it bring to our souls health and peace, with some good to our neighbor and the world, for Thy goodness’ sake, O Lord.
F.B. Meyer on Psalm 1:1-2
Open to me, I pray Thee, O Spirit of Truth, the treasures of Thy Word, that my soul may be continually enriched, and that I may abound in every good word and work, to Thy honour and glory.
A.W. Tozer
The Warfare of the Spirit on the apparent contradiction of Matthew 5:16 and 6:1-3
Live a pure, righteous life and do not hide it from the world. As much as lies in you, do good to all men, but do it unobtrusively so as not to draw attention to yourself nor bring embarrassment to the one you help.
Rut, Rot or Revival
Do not try to pray down something that the Lord is telling you to do. Do what you are told, and the Lord will be right with you...
Ignatius Loyola
Pray as if everything depended on God, but work as if everything depended on you.
Psalm 146:7-9
The Lord executes justice for the oppressed,
(and) gives food to the hungry.
The Lord sets the prisoners free;
the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
the Lord loves the righteous.
The Lord watches over the sojourners;
he upholds the widow and the fatherless (James1:27).
And He calls us to join Him, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to accomplish His sovereign will. (1 Corinthians 3:9)
CAUTION I
G. Campbell Morgan “Ability For Disability”, on Matthew 12:13 “Stretch out your hand.”
I want to warn you with all my heart against perpetual spiritual introspection. As Christ gives you new power use it in the world's wide field for Him. Think more of the need of the man who is down than of your own personal need. Think more of the enterprises of your Lord than of your own strength or weakness. Look less in, and more out, and up into the face of Jesus, and take every power He gave you when you trusted Him, and get out on to the field in ceaseless, hard toil for Him and His Kingdom. Then your spiritual life is likely to be deepened and strengthened and broadened, and instead of anaemic and sentimental religion, we shall have full-blooded, robust, strenuous Christianity, which will lift the world and help and bless it.
CAUTION II
Beautiful Thoughts from Henry Drummond, 1893
Whenever you attempt a good work you will find other men doing the same kind of work, and probably doing it better. Envy them not. Envy is a feeling of ill-will to those who are in the same line as ourselves, a spirit of covetousness and detraction. How little even Christian work is a protection against unchristian feeling! That most despicable of all the unworthy moods which cloud a Christian’s soul assuredly waits for us on the threshold of every work, unless we are fortified with this grace of magnanimity.
F.B. Meyer, Our Daily Walk on Luke 17:10 "We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty."
When we have done all that Christ asks of us, we have nothing to be proud of. Our good works do not earn our salvation, nor merit anything at the hand of our Saviour. Our uttermost service is only our duty and privilege. It is a blessed thing, when we are wholly yielded to obey Him, for in His service is perfect freedom from envy, dissatisfaction with our lot, jealousy of others, and pride.
The wonder is that He takes us into partnership with Himself. (John 13:13-16)
REMEMBER
C.H. Spurgeon
The Treasury of David on Psalm 88
(Do not envy those with a greater work)...you have a work to do; it may be the work of the head, or of the eye, it surely is whatever work God gives to you. Fear not; if He, your heavenly Master, has given it to you to do, it is His work, and He will bless it.
I may speak here Sunday after Sunday and every day of the week, but I cannot preach as powerfully as you do—because your actions are preaching to the whole world.