Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?
After He fed the five thousand and charged the crowd that followed Him to Capernaum to labor for the food that endures to everlasting life, they asked what deeds they must perform to do God's work and gain eternal life, as those who had done many burdensome works to merit heaven and were ready to take on more. They asked this not because they discerned the miracle but because they had eaten and were filled, wanting Him to keep providing physical bread and hoping for temporal rewards. The answer gives no list of deeds but sets works against faith, for the work of God is to believe in the One He sent. To believe is to receive Christ personally as Saviour, come to Him and abide in Him and His Word, and thereby gain access to all God's gifts in spiritual union with Him, since favor and heaven cannot be earned or purchased by human works. That faith comes first and working follows, for through faith Christ lives in the believer so that obedience to God's commandments and good works spring from faith and love, and by receiving Him as the true bread from heaven that gives life to the world the believer never hungers and never thirsts but receives eternal life.
Setting and Wording
The question is asked after the feeding of the five thousand with the loaves and fishes, when the crowd followed Jesus to Capernaum. It comes after He charged them to bestow not chief labor and anxiety on food that perishes but to labor for the food that endures to everlasting life, which the Son of man gives as the One sealed by God the Father. To that charge they answer by asking what they must do to work the works of God, and His reply sets their question about works against believing in the One God sent. The question therefore leads from material bread to the contrast between perishable food and the life that comes through Christ the Bread of life.
They sought Him not because they discerned the miracle but because they ate and were filled. They still wanted Him to keep providing for physical life and plenty of palatable food, as God provided manna to Israel in the wilderness. They wanted Him to repeat the feeding miracle and show how He increased the food, as though they could learn a technique or method for increasing food. Their question arose from hopes of temporal rewards and a worldly kingdom and desire for bread to meet temporal needs, in a setting where Jesus offered no promise of earthly rewards and discouraged expectation of a temporal reign. Even some who professed to be His disciples had their worldly hopes disappointed when He presented Himself as the bread of life and taught about His spiritual kingdom.
The question asks what deeds must be performed to do God's work and to deserve heaven and obtain eternal life and life to come. It comes from people who had performed many burdensome works to recommend themselves to God. They were ready to take on further observances to gain merit and greater merit.
Their question led at once to a demand for a sign so they might see and believe, and to an appeal to their fathers eating manna in the desert. That demand did not arise from need for more evidence, for they had already seen the feeding of the five thousand. It showed blind caviling unbelief and failure to receive Christ and understand their true relation to Him, since it was Christ Himself who conducted the Hebrews through the wilderness and daily fed them manna from heaven. They wanted an excuse to avoid the self-denial involved in accepting the gospel, so His plain testimony tested them and many were offended, shut their hearts against truth, chose human praise over God's admonition, took a position against Him, and turned away. The truths of the chapter were presented to lead hearers to decide for or against Christ and reveal the real sentiments of their hearts, so that those not wholly with Him would take a position against Him at His trial.
God's Work Is Faith
The question asks what deeds must be performed to do God's work, and it is answered not with a list of deeds but with faith, for the work of God is to believe in the One He sent. The inquiry about works is thus set against faith in Christ, leading from human efforts to the need for faith in Him. Believing in Christ is the work God requires and the way to receive the gift of eternal life. The question comes after the crowd sought Jesus for food that perishes, and therefore leads to the contrast between material bread and the life that comes through Christ the Bread of life. That faith is explained as coming to Christ, receiving Him as the living bread, and living by His words.
Believing means accepting Christ as personal Saviour, coming to Him and receiving Him as the living bread. Accepting Him personally as the Saviour who forgives sin is essential for salvation. Accepting Christ as personal Saviour gives access to all God's gifts, rather than performing a special work to earn a reward to meet temporal needs. Mere outward connection with any church will not save, for personal faith in a personal Saviour brings the soul into spiritual union with Christ. Failure to study and obey the words of Christ, which are as His flesh and blood, leaves many who claim to be children of God without understanding what it means to receive Christ as a personal Saviour and without ever having crucified self.
God's favor and an inheritance among the saints cannot be earned or purchased by penance or human works. The people were asking what they must do to deserve heaven and obtain eternal life, having performed many burdensome works to recommend themselves to God and being ready to take on further observances to gain merit. Jesus Himself is the price of heaven, the only-begotten Son of God, and faith in Him is the way to it. Acceptance with God and salvation come through faith in Christ and His righteousness, not through deeds by which heaven might be earned or purchased. Repentance turns a person from self to Christ, and through faith Christ lives in the believer.
Believing comes first and working follows. Faith is the foundation for the work God appoints each person to do. Students must be taught to believe in Christ and then they will work the works of God. Through faith Christ lives in the believer so that good works follow, and those who receive His grace obey God's commandments while relying on Christ for acceptance, with good works and obedience following from faith and love. The works of God are done by loving Jesus and keeping His commandments and by believing on Him whom God sent, with faith taking right hold of Jesus Christ so that He supplies all spiritual necessities for overcoming the world, the flesh, and the devil, linking the soul to infinite love until His salvation becomes a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
Faith in Christ the world's Redeemer is the way to receive eternal life and become children of God. Faith is belief in God's Word, and through Christ people receive life and become children of God. Faith in Christ, the world's Redeemer, is the means by which the world lost through unbelief can be restored.
Christ the Bread of Life
Moses did not give the bread from heaven, but the Father gives the true bread from heaven. As manna was given to preserve physical lives in the wilderness, so God sent the gift of His Son that through Him people might eat the bread of life and become immortal. It was Christ Himself who had conducted the Hebrews through the wilderness and daily fed them with that manna.
Christ is the true bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Whoever comes to Him never hungers, and whoever believes on Him never thirsts. That Bread satisfies the highest spiritual demands and the hunger of the soul, satisfying the heart and strengthening the moral powers through His Spirit. Those who so come and believe find lasting refreshment and freedom from the restless pursuit of wealth and honor. The food that comes down from heaven is of highest consequence, and that Bread is God's truth confronting the devil's lie.
The question about doing God's works comes after seeking food that perishes, and it leads to the contrast with the life that comes through Christ the Bread of life. Spiritual food is of far more consequence than temporal food, pointing to the more important need for spiritual bread that endures to eternal life. That living bread from heaven comes through no human agent, but through the gift of Christ from God Himself.
The chapter centers on receiving Christ by eating His flesh and drinking His blood for eternal life and resurrection at the last day. Even if a believer dies, the life of the Saviour is in him and his life is hid with Christ in God. By Christ's continuing work believers are made one with Him in this present life to be one with Him through all eternity with life more abundantly. The question about God's works belongs within that teaching on Himself as the Bread of Life and the life-giving meaning of His words. Those who reject Him as the Bread of life reject the truth and turn away from Him.
Receiving Christ Through Scripture
To do God's work is to feed on Christ's words as His very flesh and blood, receiving and assimilating them until they become part of the self and sustain spiritual life. His life-giving words are spiritual food and drink, the living oracles that nourish the soul and prevent spiritual hunger, and they must be taken into the life rather than merely heard. Their precepts are to be obeyed without departing from them, their truths brought into daily life and practice, and the heart thereby cleansed, nourished and shaped in obedience. What God has revealed is all that is necessary for salvation, so the Word made plain and simple is to be studied, its principles brought home to the soul, its mysteries of godliness grasped, and life lived by every word proceeding from God's mouth rather than by human suppositions, with prayer and communion proving His mind and will in striving for eternal life. Belief in the One He sent comes first and working follows, and being doers of the Word makes the Bible the great educating book above all others.
The chapter calls for looking to Christ and depending on Him rather than on human beings for strength, wisdom and guidance. Studied together with John 5 and made part of daily life and experience, its instruction in the mystery of godliness gives knowledge to distinguish the true from the false in perilous days. Receiving its principles into daily life and practicing the truth given brings connection with Christ, who knew no sin and had no guile, and the Word is the stronghold and defense against Satan's deceptions and the spiritual darkness that has displaced light in the last days, with faith laying hold of the light shining beyond that darkness, for God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.
The whole chapter is very instructive yet only faintly understood, containing most precious and important lessons for schools and for an education enduring through time and eternity. Students must take in Christ's words there to understand their privileges and advantages, realizing He is the great center of life whose words are spirit and life, and all who desire such enduring education must bring the question and answer into practical life. To receive Christ as the bread of life is continually to take in His life and teaching, making that truth part of daily experience and understanding and valuing truth as it is in Jesus, for receiving and obeying His words leads to eternal life through faith in the Son of God and life through Christ. The Word as the bread of life represents the body and blood of the Son of God and does not address the understanding alone as mathematics addresses the intellect, but aims at the heart, addresses the moral nature, takes possession of the will, casts down imaginations and every high thing exalting itself against the knowledge of God, brings every thought into captivity to Christ's obedience, and trains souls emptied of proud possessions in habits of obedience and service until Christ imprints His image, which requires yielding the will and learning as a submissive student in Christ's school because the wayward heart has dragged down the soul's faculties.
Eating His flesh and drinking His blood is tasting that the Lord is gracious in actual personal experience through true conversion and the new birth, without which no one can see or discern the requirements for a part in the spiritual kingdom. As newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word to grow thereby, the mind is opened to the entrance of God's Word with determination to practice it so light and understanding come to the simple, the former frivolous life and common level are forsaken, character is transformed under heaven's gaze, the feet are placed on Christ as the first round of the ladder and mount step by step heavenward with Christ revealed in spirit, words and actions, and believers are built as lively stones into a spiritual house, a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable through abundant grace in the genuine experience every child of God must have to enter the higher grade. The chapter defines the righteousness of Christ that must be accepted to have the wedding garment and reach the character standard for a fit guest at the wedding of humanity with divinity, by taking a firm stand for Christ and surrendering to God what is already His instead of continuing in sin and measuring character by human ideas. Its decisive testimony shows the Old Testament Scriptures sufficient so that believing them leads to believing the New, including directions for practical holiness. Children and youth above all are to be educated in the law of Jehovah and the penalty of transgression, understanding that God accepts the Saviour's ransom in their behalf when they are obedient.
Living Out God's Works
To work the works of God is to love Jesus and keep His commandments and to believe on Him whom God sent, taking right hold of Him in faith. He then supplies every spiritual necessity, so that the believer can overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil. The soul is linked to the heart of infinite love, and the rich stream of His salvation becomes within the believer a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
United with Christ, people can do God's work, and their actions testify to their faith and to their responsibility to serve Him. This means obeying the light received, accepting self-denial and sacrifice, and letting Christ shape the character, for in His power people are freed from sin to serve God. Little anxiety is to be given to temporal food to satisfy temporal hunger, for the food that comes down from heaven is of highest consequence. That Bread of life satisfies the highest spiritual demands and the hunger of the soul, and that Bread is God's truth confronting the devil's lie. The works of God mean true, wholehearted service with spiritual things as the aim and object of the life work, not looking for a temporal kingdom and not seeking temporal advancement and worldly pre-eminence. All who come after Christ must deny self, lift the cross, and follow wherever He leads, accepting Him as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, which satisfies every hungering of soul.
Labor counts as God's work only when it is truly done according to God's will. Work is not valuable to God simply because it is strenuous or extensive, but must be grounded in Scripture and nourish people with truth. Doing it therefore calls for careful study, not taking on every responsibility that can be seen, but discerning what can faithfully be carried while serving others.
Working the works of God means serving God in the work He gives to each person. That work must be done with humility, following Jesus who is meek and lowly in heart, for serving the poor, despised, and forsaken with dignity or superiority accomplishes nothing, while humble service shows learning from Christ. His will is to be accepted cheerfully and gratefully in the duties of service, and service so rendered benefits now and forever and develops character. It is to maintain religious vitality with hope wrought in God, undeterred by difficulties, working the same in gloom as in glory, in shade as in sunshine, in conflict as in peace. This requires treasuring truth in the heart and incorporating it into the being, so that no temptation or argument induces yielding, with truth working important changes upon life and character and exerting masterly influence over words, deportment, thoughts, and experience. Those who so work live not to themselves but to Him who died for them, living under the influence of truth and sensing the tremendous reality of eternal things, knowing that God lives and is ever cognizant of all words and actions.
When deeply convicted members ask how to do God's work and seek practical instruction for working for God, the answer is learning how to find Jesus as a personal Saviour. Working the works of God then means letting light shine forth to others and acting on resolutions instead of only passing them. It means keeping missionary meetings from dying by wise leadership that sets one line of work after another in motion, and making every person feel he has something to do.
Doing God's works requires spiritual hunger for Christ the bread from heaven and a decided choice of whom to serve, for a heart divided between God and other pursuits has no peace or joy. It requires thorough conversion and a new life, cherishing in the heart the truth that works by love and purifies the soul. Such humble Christianity boasts far less of its own capabilities and shows its character by the fruit borne as by a good tree, since eternal life is gained by eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of God.
The chapter stands as part of God's plainly expressed will for His people, calling for unity and love worked out in practical life to cure dissension and to stand the test. The disciples' work as Christ's representatives is to give the bread of life to the people. Souls hungering for the bread of life will come to them in unexpected positions where their faith will be tried and their human insufficiency felt. They must receive spiritual food from the source of supply or they will have nothing to impart, yet they are to turn no soul away unfed, for God who sends His servants to feed the hungry will supply their need for His own work.
After He fed the five thousand and charged the crowd that followed Him to Capernaum to labor for the food that endures to everlasting life, they asked what deeds they must perform to do God's work and gain eternal life, as those who had done many burdensome works to merit heaven and were ready to take on more. They asked this not because they discerned the miracle but because they had eaten and were filled, wanting Him to keep providing physical bread and hoping for temporal rewards. The answer gives no list of deeds but sets works against faith, for the work of God is to believe in the One He sent. To believe is to receive Christ personally as Saviour, come to Him and abide in Him and His Word, and thereby gain access to all God's gifts in spiritual union with Him, since favor and heaven cannot be earned or purchased by human works. That faith comes first and working follows, for through faith Christ lives in the believer so that obedience to God's commandments and good works spring from faith and love, and by receiving Him as the true bread from heaven that gives life to the world the believer never hungers and never thirsts but receives eternal life.
Setting and Wording
The question is asked after the feeding of the five thousand with the loaves and fishes, when the crowd followed Jesus to Capernaum. It comes after He charged them to bestow not chief labor and anxiety on food that perishes but to labor for the food that endures to everlasting life, which the Son of man gives as the One sealed by God the Father. To that charge they answer by asking what they must do to work the works of God, and His reply sets their question about works against believing in the One God sent. The question therefore leads from material bread to the contrast between perishable food and the life that comes through Christ the Bread of life.
They sought Him not because they discerned the miracle but because they ate and were filled. They still wanted Him to keep providing for physical life and plenty of palatable food, as God provided manna to Israel in the wilderness. They wanted Him to repeat the feeding miracle and show how He increased the food, as though they could learn a technique or method for increasing food. Their question arose from hopes of temporal rewards and a worldly kingdom and desire for bread to meet temporal needs, in a setting where Jesus offered no promise of earthly rewards and discouraged expectation of a temporal reign. Even some who professed to be His disciples had their worldly hopes disappointed when He presented Himself as the bread of life and taught about His spiritual kingdom.
The question asks what deeds must be performed to do God's work and to deserve heaven and obtain eternal life and life to come. It comes from people who had performed many burdensome works to recommend themselves to God. They were ready to take on further observances to gain merit and greater merit.
Their question led at once to a demand for a sign so they might see and believe, and to an appeal to their fathers eating manna in the desert. That demand did not arise from need for more evidence, for they had already seen the feeding of the five thousand. It showed blind caviling unbelief and failure to receive Christ and understand their true relation to Him, since it was Christ Himself who conducted the Hebrews through the wilderness and daily fed them manna from heaven. They wanted an excuse to avoid the self-denial involved in accepting the gospel, so His plain testimony tested them and many were offended, shut their hearts against truth, chose human praise over God's admonition, took a position against Him, and turned away. The truths of the chapter were presented to lead hearers to decide for or against Christ and reveal the real sentiments of their hearts, so that those not wholly with Him would take a position against Him at His trial.
God's Work Is Faith
The question asks what deeds must be performed to do God's work, and it is answered not with a list of deeds but with faith, for the work of God is to believe in the One He sent. The inquiry about works is thus set against faith in Christ, leading from human efforts to the need for faith in Him. Believing in Christ is the work God requires and the way to receive the gift of eternal life. The question comes after the crowd sought Jesus for food that perishes, and therefore leads to the contrast between material bread and the life that comes through Christ the Bread of life. That faith is explained as coming to Christ, receiving Him as the living bread, and living by His words.
Believing means accepting Christ as personal Saviour, coming to Him and receiving Him as the living bread. Accepting Him personally as the Saviour who forgives sin is essential for salvation. Accepting Christ as personal Saviour gives access to all God's gifts, rather than performing a special work to earn a reward to meet temporal needs. Mere outward connection with any church will not save, for personal faith in a personal Saviour brings the soul into spiritual union with Christ. Failure to study and obey the words of Christ, which are as His flesh and blood, leaves many who claim to be children of God without understanding what it means to receive Christ as a personal Saviour and without ever having crucified self.
God's favor and an inheritance among the saints cannot be earned or purchased by penance or human works. The people were asking what they must do to deserve heaven and obtain eternal life, having performed many burdensome works to recommend themselves to God and being ready to take on further observances to gain merit. Jesus Himself is the price of heaven, the only-begotten Son of God, and faith in Him is the way to it. Acceptance with God and salvation come through faith in Christ and His righteousness, not through deeds by which heaven might be earned or purchased. Repentance turns a person from self to Christ, and through faith Christ lives in the believer.
Believing comes first and working follows. Faith is the foundation for the work God appoints each person to do. Students must be taught to believe in Christ and then they will work the works of God. Through faith Christ lives in the believer so that good works follow, and those who receive His grace obey God's commandments while relying on Christ for acceptance, with good works and obedience following from faith and love. The works of God are done by loving Jesus and keeping His commandments and by believing on Him whom God sent, with faith taking right hold of Jesus Christ so that He supplies all spiritual necessities for overcoming the world, the flesh, and the devil, linking the soul to infinite love until His salvation becomes a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
Faith in Christ the world's Redeemer is the way to receive eternal life and become children of God. Faith is belief in God's Word, and through Christ people receive life and become children of God. Faith in Christ, the world's Redeemer, is the means by which the world lost through unbelief can be restored.
Christ the Bread of Life
Moses did not give the bread from heaven, but the Father gives the true bread from heaven. As manna was given to preserve physical lives in the wilderness, so God sent the gift of His Son that through Him people might eat the bread of life and become immortal. It was Christ Himself who had conducted the Hebrews through the wilderness and daily fed them with that manna.
Christ is the true bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Whoever comes to Him never hungers, and whoever believes on Him never thirsts. That Bread satisfies the highest spiritual demands and the hunger of the soul, satisfying the heart and strengthening the moral powers through His Spirit. Those who so come and believe find lasting refreshment and freedom from the restless pursuit of wealth and honor. The food that comes down from heaven is of highest consequence, and that Bread is God's truth confronting the devil's lie.
The question about doing God's works comes after seeking food that perishes, and it leads to the contrast with the life that comes through Christ the Bread of life. Spiritual food is of far more consequence than temporal food, pointing to the more important need for spiritual bread that endures to eternal life. That living bread from heaven comes through no human agent, but through the gift of Christ from God Himself.
The chapter centers on receiving Christ by eating His flesh and drinking His blood for eternal life and resurrection at the last day. Even if a believer dies, the life of the Saviour is in him and his life is hid with Christ in God. By Christ's continuing work believers are made one with Him in this present life to be one with Him through all eternity with life more abundantly. The question about God's works belongs within that teaching on Himself as the Bread of Life and the life-giving meaning of His words. Those who reject Him as the Bread of life reject the truth and turn away from Him.
Receiving Christ Through Scripture
To do God's work is to feed on Christ's words as His very flesh and blood, receiving and assimilating them until they become part of the self and sustain spiritual life. His life-giving words are spiritual food and drink, the living oracles that nourish the soul and prevent spiritual hunger, and they must be taken into the life rather than merely heard. Their precepts are to be obeyed without departing from them, their truths brought into daily life and practice, and the heart thereby cleansed, nourished and shaped in obedience. What God has revealed is all that is necessary for salvation, so the Word made plain and simple is to be studied, its principles brought home to the soul, its mysteries of godliness grasped, and life lived by every word proceeding from God's mouth rather than by human suppositions, with prayer and communion proving His mind and will in striving for eternal life. Belief in the One He sent comes first and working follows, and being doers of the Word makes the Bible the great educating book above all others.
The chapter calls for looking to Christ and depending on Him rather than on human beings for strength, wisdom and guidance. Studied together with John 5 and made part of daily life and experience, its instruction in the mystery of godliness gives knowledge to distinguish the true from the false in perilous days. Receiving its principles into daily life and practicing the truth given brings connection with Christ, who knew no sin and had no guile, and the Word is the stronghold and defense against Satan's deceptions and the spiritual darkness that has displaced light in the last days, with faith laying hold of the light shining beyond that darkness, for God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.
The whole chapter is very instructive yet only faintly understood, containing most precious and important lessons for schools and for an education enduring through time and eternity. Students must take in Christ's words there to understand their privileges and advantages, realizing He is the great center of life whose words are spirit and life, and all who desire such enduring education must bring the question and answer into practical life. To receive Christ as the bread of life is continually to take in His life and teaching, making that truth part of daily experience and understanding and valuing truth as it is in Jesus, for receiving and obeying His words leads to eternal life through faith in the Son of God and life through Christ. The Word as the bread of life represents the body and blood of the Son of God and does not address the understanding alone as mathematics addresses the intellect, but aims at the heart, addresses the moral nature, takes possession of the will, casts down imaginations and every high thing exalting itself against the knowledge of God, brings every thought into captivity to Christ's obedience, and trains souls emptied of proud possessions in habits of obedience and service until Christ imprints His image, which requires yielding the will and learning as a submissive student in Christ's school because the wayward heart has dragged down the soul's faculties.
Eating His flesh and drinking His blood is tasting that the Lord is gracious in actual personal experience through true conversion and the new birth, without which no one can see or discern the requirements for a part in the spiritual kingdom. As newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word to grow thereby, the mind is opened to the entrance of God's Word with determination to practice it so light and understanding come to the simple, the former frivolous life and common level are forsaken, character is transformed under heaven's gaze, the feet are placed on Christ as the first round of the ladder and mount step by step heavenward with Christ revealed in spirit, words and actions, and believers are built as lively stones into a spiritual house, a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable through abundant grace in the genuine experience every child of God must have to enter the higher grade. The chapter defines the righteousness of Christ that must be accepted to have the wedding garment and reach the character standard for a fit guest at the wedding of humanity with divinity, by taking a firm stand for Christ and surrendering to God what is already His instead of continuing in sin and measuring character by human ideas. Its decisive testimony shows the Old Testament Scriptures sufficient so that believing them leads to believing the New, including directions for practical holiness. Children and youth above all are to be educated in the law of Jehovah and the penalty of transgression, understanding that God accepts the Saviour's ransom in their behalf when they are obedient.
Living Out God's Works
To work the works of God is to love Jesus and keep His commandments and to believe on Him whom God sent, taking right hold of Him in faith. He then supplies every spiritual necessity, so that the believer can overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil. The soul is linked to the heart of infinite love, and the rich stream of His salvation becomes within the believer a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
United with Christ, people can do God's work, and their actions testify to their faith and to their responsibility to serve Him. This means obeying the light received, accepting self-denial and sacrifice, and letting Christ shape the character, for in His power people are freed from sin to serve God. Little anxiety is to be given to temporal food to satisfy temporal hunger, for the food that comes down from heaven is of highest consequence. That Bread of life satisfies the highest spiritual demands and the hunger of the soul, and that Bread is God's truth confronting the devil's lie. The works of God mean true, wholehearted service with spiritual things as the aim and object of the life work, not looking for a temporal kingdom and not seeking temporal advancement and worldly pre-eminence. All who come after Christ must deny self, lift the cross, and follow wherever He leads, accepting Him as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, which satisfies every hungering of soul.
Labor counts as God's work only when it is truly done according to God's will. Work is not valuable to God simply because it is strenuous or extensive, but must be grounded in Scripture and nourish people with truth. Doing it therefore calls for careful study, not taking on every responsibility that can be seen, but discerning what can faithfully be carried while serving others.
Working the works of God means serving God in the work He gives to each person. That work must be done with humility, following Jesus who is meek and lowly in heart, for serving the poor, despised, and forsaken with dignity or superiority accomplishes nothing, while humble service shows learning from Christ. His will is to be accepted cheerfully and gratefully in the duties of service, and service so rendered benefits now and forever and develops character. It is to maintain religious vitality with hope wrought in God, undeterred by difficulties, working the same in gloom as in glory, in shade as in sunshine, in conflict as in peace. This requires treasuring truth in the heart and incorporating it into the being, so that no temptation or argument induces yielding, with truth working important changes upon life and character and exerting masterly influence over words, deportment, thoughts, and experience. Those who so work live not to themselves but to Him who died for them, living under the influence of truth and sensing the tremendous reality of eternal things, knowing that God lives and is ever cognizant of all words and actions.
When deeply convicted members ask how to do God's work and seek practical instruction for working for God, the answer is learning how to find Jesus as a personal Saviour. Working the works of God then means letting light shine forth to others and acting on resolutions instead of only passing them. It means keeping missionary meetings from dying by wise leadership that sets one line of work after another in motion, and making every person feel he has something to do.
Doing God's works requires spiritual hunger for Christ the bread from heaven and a decided choice of whom to serve, for a heart divided between God and other pursuits has no peace or joy. It requires thorough conversion and a new life, cherishing in the heart the truth that works by love and purifies the soul. Such humble Christianity boasts far less of its own capabilities and shows its character by the fruit borne as by a good tree, since eternal life is gained by eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of God.
The chapter stands as part of God's plainly expressed will for His people, calling for unity and love worked out in practical life to cure dissension and to stand the test. The disciples' work as Christ's representatives is to give the bread of life to the people. Souls hungering for the bread of life will come to them in unexpected positions where their faith will be tried and their human insufficiency felt. They must receive spiritual food from the source of supply or they will have nothing to impart, yet they are to turn no soul away unfed, for God who sends His servants to feed the hungry will supply their need for His own work.