The Only Work God Asked For

The question underneath most religion is the same one people asked Jesus to His face. What do we have to do to be right with God?

John 6:28-29 says, "Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." They asked for a task list. He gave them a Person.

That answer still frustrates people. We would rather do something for God than rest completely in what Jesus already did. Doing feels responsible. Receiving feels like it cannot possibly be that simple.

Scripture has a name for the doing that gets us nowhere. Hebrews 9:14 asks how much more the blood of Christ shall "purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God." Dead works are not bad activities. They are good things done to earn what has already been handed over.

Ephesians 2:8 says, "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God." A gift only asks for open hands. And even the faith to receive it is not something you manufacture, the Holy Spirit is the one working that in you.

So if you have been hunting for the thing that finally pleases God, you can stop looking. He already told you. Believe on the One He sent, and let everything else grow out of that instead of toward it.