To this end we always pray for you, that our God…
May fulfill... every work of faith by His power.
(2 Thessalonians 1:11)
Here’s some trouble.
Work is what we do. Faith is what we hope God does. A “work of faith,” then, is something that I need to do and I need God to do. Who’s going to do this!? Am I? Is God?
Yes. For the way God works, mostly, is through our works. And, we ought to point out, the only way our works work is if God works in them.
“For this I toil, struggling with all His energy that He powerfully works in me.” (Col 1:29)
“I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I but the grace of God that is with me.” (1Cor 15:10)
“To Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us.” (Eph 3:20)
If God works mostly in this world through His people’s works, what should we do? We should work and put our works into His hands. Just like we give our hearts to God when we’re anxious, and we give our mind to Him when we’re filled with concerns, so we give our members, our bodies, our workings to Him too. We work our works… in faith.
Faith produces work.
Paul calls this “the obedience of faith” in Romans. When we meet God in Christ, learn how He is, hear all He’s done and has promised to do for us, and then read what He asks of us, we… do it. We trust Him. We obey Him. We are willing and eager!
But to work in faith is to work sometimes in specified and sometimes in unspecified ways. “Love!” He says. That’s clear. But how? Who? In what way? For how long? How do I start? Faith obeys the clear commands of Scripture, and faith walks with the Spirit through the often unmowed trails obedience takes us on in this world.
What happens when your works of faith are fulfilled?
If obedience is embodied faith—“works of faith”—then it may be a kind of prayer. A true work-of-faith becomes a silent recitation of the Lord’s Prayer. What’s more, it becomes itself a partial fulfillment of the Lord’s Prayer:
I want Your Name to be known as glorious, Father—and here’s it happening, I pray.
I want Your Son’s Kingdom to spread from Heaven to here—and so I go, I pray.
I want Your Spirit to work Your will here like in Heaven—and here’s me trying, I pray.
I want us to have enough for today—and so I go to work, I pray.
I want us to be forgiven everything, and to be great forgivers—and so I text and call, I pray.
I want us to be strong against temptations and dragged free of evils—and so I do this, I pray.
How much work does a work of faith take if a work of faith would work God’s works?
“By His power”: these works don’t work because you or I work them. Don’t you find that our “works of faith” quickly, subtly, transform into “works of obligation,” “works of selfish-ambition,” “works of status,” or just, “work”?
“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” (Psa 127:1) We work like people who don’t hope in work or trust in human works. We work hard, because what we’re doing is important and hopeful, and yet our hopes or self-importance doesn’t rest in what we do.
This sounds like a pre-prayer-meeting devotional.
“To this end we always pray…” None of us will see any of this fulfilled on our own, by our selves. Our frustrated holy-dreams and -works are frustrated by our lack of prayer. And, specifically, our lack of folks praying for us.
God loves prayer because He loves to show us His glory. Prayer is what He uses to focus our eyes on Him, so that when He works we see it! And what we want more than anything is to see Him work. “Our eyes are on You.” (2 Chron 20:12)
God will not fulfill our good works of faith just because it’s us who’s working them or we think they’re from faith. Our heavenly works will only come to be by the power of God and with the prayers of friends.
So work heavenly works. Don’t scatter your energies and ambitions. Your good works are wonderful and much-needed. Enlist helping friends. Every work of faith you work will be fulfilled by God’s power, we pray.
So may we ask; so may we pray. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Photo by Kristian Løvstad on Unsplash
