Whose kingdom gets the credit, yours or God’s?

2 Thessalonians 1:11-12

The question; how much is my effort and how much of it is God doing through me?  That question gives many Christians who desire to be not just Christian in name only, real problems; especially those who have a personal walk with Jesus Christ and are His followers.  James a servant of God had this to say on that subject: “What good is it my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?  Can that faith save him?  James 2:14   It is important not to miss what James has said, he is not saying faith is not part of Salvation, he is merely saying that faith that has no action with it is of little or no value.  But James has more to say on the subject in verses18-20, “But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.”  Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.  You believe that God is one; you do well.  Even the demons believe and shudder!  Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless.”  So even to someone as simple as me, it is clear that faith does not just talk, but faith always produces action of some kind.

My dear friend John opened a new car dealership in another state and had partners who knew the car business and ran it for him.  As happens in business, there were parties whose actions caused my friend to be exposed criminally as well as to civil lawsuits, unless he acted quickly and made right the wrong that had been done.  It was not a quick process and it looked as if it would require all his personal worth to make right this wrong.  My friend is a follower of Christ, a man of the highest integrity and a leader in his community and his church, and over the many months John came to some new insights about God.  In one of our many talks over this period of time he and his wife were going through this nightmare; God opened John’s eyes to a new truth.  The truth is   that God wants to do it all for us, but it requires us running to him, and crying Father, I can’t, and agreeing with God that, He never said I could, that He can and He promised He would.  You see my friend who was a leader in the local church, a leader in his home, and in the community, had wrongly believed that he should go to God with the big things like the cure for cancer or world peace, and that God expected him to handle the small things; anything below solving cancer and world peace.  He learned at that point in time to look totally to God, (because it is such a warfare with our flesh, the moment you believe you have learned to only look to God, a new battle of wills takes place.)  It may be more correct to state at that time he submitted and looked to God for all his needs. 

This truth is very clear in 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12, “To this end we always pray for you, that our God may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”  Being a bottom line person, it is whose kingdom gets the credit, yours or God’s?

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From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice