Dead Works v Good Works

Friday, 29th May 2009

Last week, I blogged about grace being the source of good works. You can read about that here.

In other words, we do good works not "in order to" but we do works "as a result of".

Under the Old Covenant, man had to do good in order to earn God's approval and acceptance.

Under the New Covenant, God has already given us His acceptance, and because we are accepted, the gratitude overflows and we respond by doing good to others.

I recently received a message on Facebook from someone I would refer to as P.

Hi Malcolm,

i am having problem identifying "dead works" in my day to day life (i'm certain i have plenty of those as soon as i can tell the difference!). i read something recently from angie's blog and she cited some examples of dead works, eg. helping to ferry a neighbour's child from school. i have to admit that it confused me somewhat.

when does doing something good out of the kindness of your heart become a "dead work"? i'm hoping you can help shed some light.

thanks and shalom,
P


This was my response to her:

Hi P

For me, I will go by the presence and absence of peace.

Depending on the time and season, a work may be good at some stage but become a dead one at another.

For example, I gave out quite a number of copies of D2R two years ago and D2RD last year, and even went to the extent of going to the post office to mail out some of them. Back then, I felt a sense of purpose and fulfilment in doing so because it came out of an overflow, of being grateful to God for the extent of the undeserved favour He had bestowed upon me. There was much joy and peace that accompanied these acts.

Nowadays, I still get requests every now and then for the books but have decided to turn them down politely because it has become somewhat of an obligatory chore to do so.

The source has to be God's grace, and our deeds a response to that grace. If it is done out of an obligation, then it is better not to do so.

What I strongly believe is that the Holy Spirit in us, will give us both the joy and desire to carry out good works. If there is neither, then a work, however noble, is but a dead one.

After replying to her, the LORD brought to mind something that happened 2 weeks ago. I am currently on a sabbatical from my own church and as a result had informed my senior pastor that I will not be tithing to my church during the period of my sabbatical. You can read about that here.

Whenever Ps Reuben preaches, my wife and I will attend our home church, but when the offering bag is passed, I will not put anything in it. But 2 weeks ago, when I was attending the youth service and Ps Reuben was preaching on Jonah 3, somehow I felt the LORD prompting me to put a $50 into the bag. As the bag was approaching, there was another voice telling me "Hello? Aren't you on a sabbatical? Are you giving the right signal to your senior pastor if you do that? Save that and sow it into One-North instead."

Even though I struggled in my mind, yet there was sense of peace in my heart. So I went ahead to drop the note into the bag, even though I was under no legal obligation to do so. At that point, I was reminded of what Paul said about God loving a cheerful giver. If we give out a sense of duty and obligation, then it is better not to because it is not done in the right spirit.

And so what would have been a dead work on another occasion was a good work this time around :-)