“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

Ephesians 2:10

Jesus doesn’t just want to just work in you, he wants to work through you.

Jesus works in you so that he can work through you. But, if you live always doing what you want, Jesus will always just be working on you. A poorly treated car will spend more time in the shop than it does on the road. Jesus wants you on the road to go where he prepared for you to go and do what he prepared for you to do. But, if you are always trying to crank the car or take it where you want to, you’ll constantly end up with the mechanic and not on the mission.

Prepared for good works, not guess work.

I want you to know that God, through Jesus Christ, has actually prepared things for you to do. These things are called “good works,” not guess work. These are not good things that you choose or you guess, but works that are ordained by God himself. Too many Christians follow Jesus like it’s bunch of guess work. And when this is the case, then you simply are too far away from Jesus. Those that are close to Jesus don’t have to guess what he is doing or guess what he has prepared for them to do.

I do not want you to think of these good works like some huge, giant-slaying work like slaying Goliath. But rather, a series of good, simple steps that transpire every day of your life. This happens in your home, your office, your car, on your errands, with your spouse, with your kids and as you do life.

Don’t walk toward or away from Jesus, walk in Jesus.

When you guess for Jesus, your guess takes you away from him. Too many Christians are walking toward Jesus when they should be walking in Jesus. There is a supreme difference. Jesus wants to be with you. This is why he made you. Jesus loves companionship. He loves intimacy and fellowship. In fact, listen to these verses from the Gospel of Mark (3:13-15):

“And he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him. And he appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons.”

1. Jesus called you so he can be with you. 

This sounds kind of crazy, but it is absolutely true. Jesus calls you so that he can be with you. He loves you. And those he loves he wants to be with. Don’t you long to be with those you love when you are apart? Doesn’t your heart ache and yearn to be reconnected to those in who you are apart from? This is how it is with Jesus. God said that Jesus, the Messiah, would be called Immanuel, that means “God with us.” And when he is with us we don’t have to guess.

People Jesus doesn’t want to be with he doesn’t call. Those whom he calls, he keeps calling. You can’t un-call yourself from being called by Jesus. He calls whom he wills. He wills whom he calls. Your first concern before doing the will of Jesus is to ask yourself “Am I with Jesus?” You need to be with Jesus before you try to do things for Jesus. The greatest rest and the greatest delight your soul can ever truly experience is to be in Christ Jesus, that is to be with him. It is invisible, but it is real. When you are with Jesus your soul both soars and sinks.

Your part of being with Jesus is to (a) repent to him of your sins & keep yourself from sin, (b) spend time with him in prayer, (c) thank him & praise him with your lips, (d) read his word, the Bible, (e) spend time with his people, the Church and (f) meditate & memorize his word throughout your day.  Ask yourself if you are really doing these things. This is a list of relationship builders with Jesus.

2. There is no self-appointment in Christ’s Kingdom.

There are too many Christians today who have not learned to listen to Jesus. Instead, they are listening to themselves. When you listen to yourself you learn to appoint yourself–you guess. You learn to pick what you desire and do what you desire. You attach the idea that what you are doing is good and most often you miss Christ entirely. See, Jesus calls those whom he desires, so that they will do what he desires.

When you join the military you do not get to pick your rank. You simply enlist. You then immediately belong to the military. You are given a rank. You are given a position and it doesn’t matter what you desire. Your job is to do what you are told to do. There is no self-appointment in the army. You don’t join at 18 or 19 years old and say, “Well, I think I’d like to be a general. This being a private or a lieutenant is for the birds. I’m tired of being told what to do. I’m ready to tell someone else what to do.” You simply are trained to say “Yes sir.” This is because you don’t appoint yourself.

The reason so many Christians are disappointed is that they are living in self-appointment.

Disappointment has a way of discouraging you or frustrating you. Christians should not live in discouragement or frustration. Discouragement is fertile soil for doubt. Doubt never produces the will of God. So if you are living in doubt, you will not be living in a place of fruitfulness for Christ. Frustration is simply soft anger. We don’t want to admit that we are angry, but we say that we are frustrated when really we are angry. Anger always has to be placed somewhere. We get angry most often when we don’t get our own way. A great sign of spiritual immaturity is to get angry when you don’t get your way.

3. Jesus doesn’t send you to places he hasn’t prepared for you.

Not once in the Bible can I find an instance where Jesus sent someone he called to do something he hadn’t prepared them for or the place for them. Jesus has to not only prepare the person he has to prepare the place. Don’t hear Jesus’s call and then try to do the work in your strength. But, this is exactly what is seen over and over again in the life of God’s people.

Jesus doesn’t send you anywhere he doesn’t go before you.

This is a wonderful, soul-securing truth of Scripture. Jesus does work we never see to produce fruit we can see. But, the problem for so many Christians is they go to places that Jesus didn’t call them to do work he didn’t prepare for them. To make matters worse, many Christians also don’t stay long enough to produce all that Christ has prepared for them. Jesus doesn’t call you to places he isn’t already working in. You may feel alone. You may not see many or any friends. But the work Jesus prepared for you is not dependent on how you feel or what friends you make. Sometimes, Jesus just wants you to depend on him and be with him. You have to learn that He is enough.

We are the products of Jesus Christ not the projects of Jesus Christ.

Christians are not projects, we are products. A project is planned enterprise with an uncertain outcome. A product is something that is made for a definite purpose. You are not Jesus’s project, you are Jesus’s product. He has made you to be with him, to look like him and to bear fruit like him. You are made for a specific purpose to accomplish a definite outcome. This means you can try anything, but you can only truly succeed in what you were made for.

Jesus doesn’t do bad work. Bad work comes from guess work.

Jesus is doing great work in you to do good work through you. The best work you will ever do is the work that Jesus prepared for you to do. The worst work you will do for Christ is the work you guessed he wanted you to do and you guessed wrong. It will feel like a good thing, but it will leave you empty. Good works have a fulfillment that guess works never do.

Be more concerned about the input than the outcome. Be more concerned with what you are putting into your relationship with Jesus than what you are producing out of it. So much of what we produce, we didn’t actually produce. He did. And then we take credit for it. Learn to love being with Jesus, because he loves to be with you. Then as you walk in him, he works through you. Your best work will always be to do that which he prepared for you to do–and that’s no guess!

(c) Alex Vann, 2018