James 2:17(NLT) teaches us, “So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.” Many of us have adopted our own program when it comes to backing our faith with good works. We choose what we’re going to do, then we commit ourselves to it, and expect God to bless it by giving us His rewards. Good works is faith in action, there can be no doubt about it. God used faith to create all that we survey, and it’s no secret that faith belongs to Him. This means that God must spearhead the process from beginning to end if His rewards are involved. We are to receive instructions and directions from Him, and He guides us as we carry them forth. It wouldn’t make sense to believe Him for the rewards, but not believe Him for the instruction and guidance to carry out His plan. God leads. Faith is His program, and He has seen fit to bring us into what He has prepared. Life is meant to be a feast at His table.
God’s process is nothing short of glorious. If He allowed us to steer, it would be less than glorious, and that’s not His plan. Our partnership with Him is lived out as we follow His lead and as He unveils what He has in store. It is beyond phenomenal to know that we can actually glorify God with our whole lives! And He has told us exactly how to do it! We glorify God by producing fruit. Jesus Christ teaches us in John 15:8(NLT), “When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father.”
You and I can’t do any ol’ thing and call it producing fruit. Jesus Christ makes this very plain in John 15:4-5(NLT), where he tells us, “4 Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. 5 Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.” To remain in Christ is to recognize and avail ourselves to him through the Holy Spirit that dwells within us. The Holy Spirit guides us into ALL truth (John 16:13). We cannot be guided to the truth unless he leads us to it. He tells us what he hears from Jesus Christ, and he tells us about the future.
Jesus Christ also teaches us in John 16:15(NLT), “All that belongs to the Father is mine; this is why I said, ‘The Spirit will tell you whatever he receives from me.’” As believers of the Lord
Jesus Christ, there should be continual dialogue with him through his Spirit. When we’re not learning to hear and receive from him, many of us go off on our own tangent and start taking matters into our own hands. We try to make things happen ourselves. We must understand that we produce not by what we supply, but by what God supplies. God is our Source. 2Corinthians 3:5(NLT) declares, “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God.” When we try to use our own brand of love and goodness, we fall short. But when we live through God’s Spirit, we tap into His supply.
God teaches us what delights Him so that we can understand and know Him as intimately as He can be known. Our Heavenly Father deals in transparency. He doesn’t keep secrets from us but has freely shared all we need to know about Him, His nature, and His requirements through His Word. Psalm 33:5(NKJV) tells us, “He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the goodness of the LORD.” Righteousness and justice please God. We don’t have to speculate about this or wonder how to please Him. He’s told us exactly what pleases Him in His Word.
It’s a mistake to think that we can fulfill our relationship with God based on our own opinions and assumptions about what He wants. Some of us have made a habit pattern of doing this, of taking matters into our own hands and then asking God to bless it afterwards. This isn’t in alignment with His Will. Again, Jesus Christ told us in Matthew 6:33 to seek God first because God is a Rewarder of diligent effort, and he means exactly what he says. God has equipped us to glorify, please, and delight Him, and our responsibility is to seek Him first and be led by His Spirit in obedience and truth. This is what pleases God.
Heavenly Father is all-powerful and all-knowing, and our faith in His goodness moves the manifestation process along, because that is how God designed it to work. We must have a heart that fully embraces Jesus Christ as the head of our lives. Through his Spirit, he leads and guides us in the Will of God so that we receive all that Heavenly Father has in store. We’re not perfect, but we are being perfected in Christ as we submit to him in humility. He is preparing us for higher spiritual heights, and we have the phenomenal privilege to watch our blessings manifest through our fully persuaded and sold-out faith in him.■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“Pleasing God Causes Blessings to Manifest”, written for 4theChristianMan.com© 2022. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.