Something to Ponder

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

SOMETHING TO PONDER

John 6:28-29

28 Then they asked him, "What must we do to do the works God requires?" 29 Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent." 

NIV

We are still looking at the conversation between Jesus and the crowd of five thousand or so that followed after him whom he had feed from five loaves and two fish. He had just told them they shouldn’t be working for bread that spoils but rather for that which endures to eternal life. So here they ask him, what kind of work we must do in order to have this kind of bread that endures to eternal life. Jesus’s answer is so simply, so plain, so easy, yet for the centuries that have followed his death, man has turned his answer into the most complex set of rules and regulations in so many various forms it is difficult to image anyone could ever do the work God requires to obtain this bread that endures to eternal life. Jesus simply told them the work of God was to believe in the one he has sent, which of course is Jesus. So in order for us to do the work that God requires to gain eternal life, we must believe in Jesus, believe he is the Son of God, believe he came to satisfy God’s need for justice, to die for us, so that we may live. That is it, we must be born again, our old self die, and we are born a new creature in Christ, believing in him, what he did for us, what he said and taught. Yes there are changes we make in our life because we believe. Yes, Jesus taught us many behaviors that are wrong and those that are right. Yes, we should make every effort to live in a manner that pleases God, but all that is not the work God requires. We are not saved by works, but by faith in Jesus Christ, that is it, that simply, faith, believe in Jesus. There is no formula for salvation, no four spiritual laws or any denominational guidelines, or practices which bring eternal life, only believing in Jesus. When the final judgment happens, the sheep and the goats will be separated, based on who has done and who has not done the work that God requires. Only those who have done the work of God, not the work of the church, will enter into eternal life. We cannot confuse doing good deeds here on earth with doing the work of God. Although it is true as believers we should do some good deeds, like for example taking care of the widows and orphans, but those are simply outpourings of the love of Jesus in our hearts, they are not associated with getting to heaven. God has told us through James that our faith without that kind of outpouring from our hearts is a dead kind of faith, which could mean that if we are not doing some good for others, we may actually not believe in the one he has sent. Now that is something to ponder on.