Works! Are They Empty? An Opinion Essay
A Christian Living Article from All-Creatures.org Guide to Kingdom Living

True Christian living requires us to live according to Kingdom standards which bring Heaven to earth.

FROM Marcela Lopez

Since I’ve been in the evangelic church, I always heard "not for deeds we will be saved" and with this thought they despise any work that any person does.

I think they are missing the point. The Bible doesn’t mean works are always empty; they forget that the Bible also says, "faith without works is dead." And, what about the work of the people who are not saved?

There are people working for human rights, worrying about persons who are not even their own families and, even so, trying to relieve and end their suffering; people working to stop suffering and abuse of animals; people trying to stop the destruction of the earth, taking actions to protect the ecology.

All these works please God, and I believe they are truly guided by the Holy Spirit. Since these people are doing these things for the mercy they have in their hearts, they are actually working for God, and because of this mercy they have, somehow prepare their hearts for God. Even when they deny with their mouths to be believers, it is this same mercy that is going to lead them to God, and they will open their hearts to the complete Truth of God. This is more likely to happen when people work because of the compassion in their hearts.

Now, the emptiness comes when people do things for the wrong reason: to gain public favor; popularity; to obtain something from somebody; for personal reasons; etc. As often happens, for example, in the case of some artists or politicians when at a certain point of their careers suddenly they get merciful and do one or two things to raise funds for a non-profit organization. These are really empty works.

Church leaders do wrong when they misunderstand the Bible and emphasize that works are empty, while the whole congregation nod in agreement, when actually they should be more worried about doing something more than just warming a pew in the church. They should stop despising the work of all compassionate people, arguing that they don’t know God, because at the end, the results could be opposite from what they think, quite different than they expect.

Those nodding in the church could finally lose their salvation because of the hardness of their hearts, and those working outside could be led to salvation because of their obedience to the inner voice of mercy they heard—the voice that cannot come from anyone other than God, our sweet and compassionate Father, our Creator Jehovah.

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