Human beings as created was intended to work. Mental activity and physical activity directed toward the accomplishment of a task; the labor by which a person earns his livelihood refers to "Work." In other words, "Work" is an acts or a deeds. One of the human beings primary tasks in the Garden of Eden was to "till the soil."

At the time when Yahweh God made earth and heaven there was as yet no wild bush on the earth nor had any wild plant yet sprung up, for Yahweh God had not sent rain on the earth, nor was there any man to till the soil. - Gen. 2:5 -

In order for human beings to fully comprehend and to be aware; how "Work" started and became a necessities for human beings, because God, our Creator work, in the beginning of the creation of heaven and earth. In the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible God's mighty acts are called works. Creation - Ps. 8:3-9 - Sirach 43:1-37 - redemptive acts in history like the Exodus - Judg. 2;7,10 - and even wrath - Is. 28:21 - are referred to God's work.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was a formless void, there was darkness over the deep, and God's spirit hovered over the water.

God said, 'Let there be light' and there was light. God saw that light was good, and God divided light from darkness. God called light 'day' and darkness he called 'night.' Evening came and morning came: the first day.

God said, 'Let there be a vault in the waters to divide the waters in two.' And so it was. God made the vault, and it divided the waters above the vault from the waters under the vault. God called the vault 'heaven'. Evening came and morning came: the second day.

God said, 'Let the waters under heaven come together into a single mass, and let dry land appear.' And so it was. God called the dry land 'earth' and the mass of waters 'seas' and God saw it was good. God said, 'Let the earth produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants, and fruit trees bearing fruit with their seed inside, on the earth.' And so it was. The earth produced vegetation: plants bearing seed in their several kinds, and trees bearing fruit with their seed inside in their several kinds. God saw that it was good. Evening came and morning came: the third day.

 God said, 'Let there be lights in the vault of heaven to divide day from night, and let them indicate festivals, day and years. Let them be lights in the vault of heaven to shine on the earth.' And so it was. God made the two great lights: the greater light to govern the day, the smaller light to govern the night, and the stars. God set them in the vault of heaven to shine on the earth, to govern the day and the night and to divide light from darkness. God saw that it was good. Evening came and morning came: the fourth day.

God said, 'Let the waters teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth within the vault of heaven.' And so it was. God created great sea-serpents and every kind of living creature with which the waters teem, and every kind of winged creature. God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying, 'Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the waters of the seas; and let the birds multiply upon the earth.' Evening came and morning came: the fifth day.

God said, 'Let the earth produce every kind of living creature: cattle, reptiles, and every kind of wild beast.' And so it was. God made every kind of wild beast, every kind of cattle, and every kind of land reptile. God saw that it was good. God said, 'Let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves, and let them be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven, the cattle, all the wild beasts and all the reptiles that crawl upon the earth.'

God created man in the image of himself,
in the image of God he created him,
male and female he created them.

God blessed them, saying to them, 'Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and conquer it. Be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven and all living animals on the earth.' God said, 'See, I give you all the seed-bearing plants that are upon the whole earth, and all the trees with seed-bearing fruit; this shall be your food. To all wild beasts, all birds of heaven and all living reptiles on the earth I give all the foliage of plants for food.' And so it was. God saw all he had made, and indeed it was very good. Evening came and morning came: the sixth day. - Gen. 1-31 -

Thus, heaven and earth were completed with all their array. On the seventh day God completed the work he had been doing. He rested on the seventh day after all the work he had been doing. God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on that day he had rested after all his work of creating.

Such were the origins of heaven and earth when they were created. - Gen. 2:1-4 -

Although work was ordained by God as a blessing, it became a curse as a result of the FALL. Human beings now have to work for his food and much of his produce would be frustration. "To the woman God said: 'I will multiply your pains in childbearing, you shall give birth your children in pain. Your yearning shall be for your husband, yet he will lord it over you.' To the man God said: 'Because you listened to the voice of your wife and ate from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat', Accursed be the soil because of you. With suffering shall you get your food from it everyday of your life. It shall yield you brambles and thistles, and you shall eat wild plants. With sweat on your brow shall you eat your bread, until you return to the soil, as you were taken from it. For dust you are and to dust you shall return.'" - Gen. 3:16-19 -

In the Old Testament, God ordained that six days be spent in work with one day of rest. "Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. For six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath day for Yahweh your God." - Ex. 20:9 -

The people of God in the Old Testament are frequently encountered performing works in service to God, for instance, in the building of the tabernacle in the wilderness - Ex. 26 - and the Temple. - 1 Chr. 28:10 - Much of the 'Wisdom Literature' of the Old Testament praises hard work - Pro. 14:23, 31:27 - while it condemns and ridicules laziness. - Pro. 6:6-11, 21:25 -

In the Old Testament, the Book of Ecclesiastes teaches that work, no matter how noble and diligently pursued, is rendered meaningless in a world cursed at the Fall. Work in a fallen world is frequently reduced to exploitation and oppression.

I come again to contemplate all the oppression that is committed under the sun. Take for instance the tears of the oppressed, with no one to protect them; the power their oppressors wield. No one to protect them! So, rather than the living who still have lives to live, I salute the dead who have already met death; happier than both of these is he who is yet unborn and has not seen the evil things that are done under the sun. I see that all effort and all achievement spring from men mutual jealousy. This too, is vanity and chasing the wind. - Eccl. 4:1-4 -

Nevertheless, through Christ's redemption, work finds hope and meaning. Jesus Christ's work was given to Him by His Father. His task was to fulfilled the Old Testament sacred scriptures and to accomplished redemption for human beings by dying on the Cross. In fact, the same attitude is found in the New Testament. Apostle Paul and his associates worked and they expected the believers to work and earn their own support.

We gave you a rule when we were with you: not to let anyone have any food if he refused to do any work. Now we hear that there are some of you who are living in idleness, doing no work themselves but interfering with everyone else's. In the Lord Jesus Christ, we order and call on people of this kind to go on quietly working and earning the food that they eat. - 2 Thess. 3:10-12 -

God's work are praised often and Christ's works are thoroughly written in the Gospels and in the New Testament. But human beings works are either good or bad, and these two categories are often mentioned together. Christians are taught to display good works. Love is the one thing that cannot hurt your neighbour; that is why it is the answer to every one of the commandments.

You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill top cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp to put it under a tub; they put it on the lamp stand where it shines for everyone in the house. In the same way your light must shine in the sight of men, so that, seeing your good works, they may give the praise to your Father in heaven. - Matt. 5:14-16 -

On the other hand, negative works and sinning against God, for instances, works of darkness, works of the flesh, fornication, sexual irresponsibility, idolatry, hypocrisy, feuds and wrangling, jealousy, envy, and similar things. And if anyone of you, misbehaves, the more spiritual of you who set right should do so in a spirit of gentleness, not forgetting that you may be tempted yourselves. Thus, do not delude yourself into thinking God can be cheated: where a person sows, there he and she reaps.

Try to discover what the Lord wants of you, having nothing to do with the futile works of darkness but exposing them by contrast. - Eph. 10-12 - Gal.5:19 -

Although works of the law are good in themselves, they do not necessary bring salvation. Do we mean that faith makes the Law pointless? Not at all: we are giving the Law its true value.

We acknowledge that what makes a person righteous is not obedience to the Law, but faith in Jesus Christ. We had to become believers in Christ Jesus no less than you had, and now we hold that faith in Christ rather than fidelity to the Law is what justifies us, and that no one can be justified by keeping the Law. - Gal. 2:16 -

I am no longer trying for perfection by my own efforts, the perfection that comes from the Law, but I want only perfection that comes through faith in Christ, and is from God and based on faith. All I want is to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and to share his sufferings by reproducing the pattern of his death. - Phil. 3:9-10 -

Abraham not justified by works and Abraham justified by works are not contradictory but complementary; works were the evidence of Abraham's faith.

Apply this to Abraham, the ancestor from whom we are all descended. If Abraham was justified as a reward for doing something, he would really have had something to boast about, though not in God's sight because scripture says: Abraham put his faith in God, and this faith was considered as justifying him. If a man has work to show, his wages are not considered as a favour but as his due; but when a man has nothing to show except faith in the one who justifies sinners, then his faith is considered as justifying him. And David says the same: a man is happy if God considers him righteous, irrespective of good deeds: Happy those whose crimes are forgiven, whose sins are blotted out; happy the man whom the Lord considers sinless. - Rom. 4:2-8 -

Take the case, my brothers, of someone who has never done a single good act but claims that he has faith. Will that faith save him? If one of the brothers or one of the sisters is in need of clothes and has not enough food to live on, and one of you says to them, 'I wish you well; keep yourself warm and eat plenty' without giving them these bare necessities of life, then what good is that? Faith is like that: if good works do not go with it, it is quite dead.

This is the way to talk to people of that kind: 'You say you have faith and I have good deeds; I will prove to you that I have faith by showing you my good deeds - now you prove to me that you have faith without any good deeds to show. You believe in the one God - that is creditable enough, but the demons have the same belief, and they tremble with fear. Do realise, you senseless people, that faith without good deeds is useless. You surely know that Abraham our father was justified by his deed, because he offered his son Isaac on the altar? There you see it: faith and deeds were working together; his faith became perfect by what he did. This is what scripture really means when it says: Abraham put his faith in God, and this was counted as making him justified; and that is why he was called 'the friend of God.'

You see now that it is by doing something good, and not only by believing that a man is justified. There is another example of the same kind: Rahab the prostitute,  by her deeds because she welcomed the messengers and showed them a different way to leave. A body dies when it is separated from the spirit, and in the same way faith is dead if it is separated from good deeds. - James 2:14-26 -

Work for your salvation 'in fear and trembling.' It is God, for his own loving purpose, who puts both the will and the action into you. - Phil. 2:13 -

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Faith . Hope . Love - Welcome donation. Thank You. God bless.

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Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -