"Unseen Actions"

"Unseen Actions"

    In response to the leading and enabling of the Holy Spirit, born again believers perform millions of mostly unseen actions every day that honor their Lord and bless others.

    "Thou hast wrought all our works in us" (Isaiah 26:12).

    A vibrantly active God indwells and walks in believers (II Corinthians 6:16).  As the Lord Jesus Christ declared of His own experience regarding the dynamic working of the Divine in the human, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work" (John 5:17).  We can be grateful that the Gospels record many of the Savior's acts of love, grace, and truth.  However, even in the Lord Jesus, most of God's works were done quietly and without fanfare or Scriptural record.  Before His ministry of teaching and miracles, He lived so unremarkably - in the outward sense - that when His public life began, "neither did His brethren believe in Him" (John 7:5).  Afterwards, the Lord Jesus accomplished so much that the Apostle John supposed that "even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written" (John 21:25).  An active God indeed dwelt in the Lord Jesus, the same active God that now dwells in believers: "It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13).

    Again, however, most of what our Lord accomplishes in and through us happens so unobtrusively that our left hand does not know what our right hand is doing (Matthew 6:3).  When born again believers "commit thy way" unto our Heavenly Father, He faithfully works in us to motivate, direct, and enable us to fulfill the first tenets of our prayers: "Hallowed be Thy name.  Thy kingdom come.  Thy will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven" (Psalm 37:5; Matthew 6:9-10).  Such working involves things we do that may not appear to be directly spiritual or of Heavenly emphasis.  Our countenance, demeanor, attitudes, actions, and small expressions of unselfish sacrifice nevertheless shine brightly with Christ as we walk by faith and devotion to God's name, kingdom, and will.  At the Judgment Seat of Christ, where our works as believers will be evaluated, we will likely be stunned by our Father's affirmations of things He did in us and we did through Him that we never knew to be the product of His presence in our lives.  Perhaps this explains the Apostle Paul's intriguing statement regarding the Judgment Seat: "Then shall every man have praise of God" (II Corinthians 5:10; I Corinthians 4:5).

    What will the Lord do in us today as we devote ourselves to His glory and will?  We likely won't know more than a bit of His doings.  We won't know how God is working.  But we can be sure that He is working.  This is best for us as such an unseen way directs all honor to the Lord Jesus, and helps to keep us from pride and self importance.  In this day, believers will perform millions of actions that begin with our Lord, are motivated by Him, enabled by the Holy Spirit, and beneficial to the sphere of influence in which we live.  The work, however, will be done so under the surface and behind the scenes that our left hand won't even notice the activity of our right hand.  More to the point, it will not see God's hand as He works in us to will and to do of His good pleasure.

"We walk by faith, not by sight."

(II Corinthians 7:5)

Weekly Memory Verse

   For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish."

(Psalm 1:6)