The Bible says there is nothing humans can do to earn salvation; for justification is by grace alone. But what about after we’ve been saved? Should the Christian life consist of hard work; or are we sanctified (grow in Christian maturity) by grace as well. The answer is ‘yes’ and ‘no’.
If we truly love God, we will WANT to work as hard as we can for him. It’s like marriage. Most husbands are not naturally drawn to romance their wives, buy them flowers, or watch romantic comedies with them. But if they love their wives, they will gladly go out of their way to do things their wives want. In fact, it will not even seem like work; because they delight in making their wives happy. In the same way, the Christian delights to work hard at doing what God wants.
Yet at the same time, the Christian life does NOT consist of hard work, because we cannot grow in our Christian maturity through our own efforts. Rather, Christian growth comes through growing in one’s love for God. The more we love God from our heart, the more we will delight in obeying him, and the easier it will become. The Christian who finds it easiest to obey God’s commands is usually the Christian who loves Jesus the most.
The way we love God more from our heart is not through hard work, it is through having ‘God’s love for us’ sink down deep into our heart and catch fire there. Eph 3:14-19 tells us this can only be achieved through the Spirit’s power; not ours. As such, if Christians are to work hard at anything, it should be praying for the Spirit’s power to help us grasp the enormity of God’s love, so that we can be ‘filled to the measure of all the fullness of God’.
Brendan McLaughlin
