Get to work! By the grace of God

God is Sovereign. He is in total control. In His sovereign plan He has ordained that man do the good works He has planned for him to do. Man must trust in God’s Sovereignty as he does the work he is responsible to do. He must come under the authority of God’s Word and under God’s grace. Then he is truly free to do the works God has called him to do. The man who thinks he doesn’t need to depend on God is blinded by pride. He thinks he is strong enough and doing great works on his own without Christ, but he is truly weak. It is when we recognize we are weak and needy people who need to depend on Christ that we are truly strong. In fact as Elisabeth Elliot says, you must be dependent on Christ to truly be His disciple.

Elisabeth Elliot says in her book Discipline: The Glad Surrender, “Jesus, in response to the will of the Father, demonstrated what it means to be fully human when He took upon Himself the form of a man and in so doing voluntarily and gladly chose both dependence and obedience. Humanity for us, as for Christ, means both dependence and obedience. The unwillingness on the part of men and women to acknowledge their helpless dependence is a violation of our “creatureliness.” The unwillingness to be obedient is a violation of our humanity. Both are declarations of independence and, whether physical or moral, are essentially atheistic. In both, the answer to the call is no. … Discipline is the wholehearted yes to the call of God. When I know myself called, summoned, addressed, taken possession of, known, acted upon, I have heard the Master. I put myself gladly, fully, and forever at His disposal, and to whatever He says my answer is yes.”

2 Corinthians 12:9-10

9 And He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness." Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Paul, who had so much to boast about, saw the need to recognize his weakness compared to Christ and his need for the power of Christ to rest upon him. We too are weak and must have the power of Christ to rest upon us in order to do any good work. So, cling to Christ, abide in His Word, rest under His grace and do the work He has called you to do as you depend on His strength and power to do it.