UNCOMMON DESIRE FOR GOOD WORKS - PART 2

TUESDAY 22 OCTOBER 2024

When we participate in Kingdom good works, we experience a fulfilling sense of delight that conditions us to conform more to the image of Christ, who gave us the empowering authority to function accordingly. More below!

Reference: Acts 9:36 Common English Bible (CEB)

"In Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (in Greek her name is Dorcas). Her life overflowed with good works and compassionate acts on behalf of those in need."

The Bible mentioned that a disciple named as "Dorcas" was overflowing with good deeds and kind acts. In her sense of identity, the good works and compassionate acts were not of her own making or strength, for we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

How does this truth become active in a born again Christian who practises it? The preparation was done by God before heaven and earth were created, such that again and again, in any "willing" mind, the ideas for good deeds manifest themselves, and after they are imprinted on the surface of a thought pattern, the result is thus attained or accomplished through apparent actions - in accordance with the standard of the glorious gospel.

Question: Why did I mention specifically that the result is mainly attained "in accordance with the standard of the glorious gospel"? Answer: There are so many earthly good works that are not seemingly prepared by or rewarded by God; those are performances inspired by physically-minded efforts and exerted in accordance with man's standard. So they are not bountifully carried out in a divinely-inspired reckoning, testifying to Christ-like character, or attached to God's way of doing things!

To instantiate this verity, a man could be offering a lady a business contract, and keep alive in his heart, an expectation of sexual favours in return. This sort of rewarding expectation is not activated in the memory of the godly, while carrying out the good works which God prepared for us in advance to operate by Spirit-enabled influence in Christ. The store house of our notions for good works is replete with nothing but actual God-fearing and solemn perception - offering positive possibilities to others, in the realm of doing good with the right motives, often carried out in the right manner.

So the mindset of the righteous is a storehouse of divine ideas and transforming impressions, primarily exerted as pictorial cognitions or imaginative expressions that own the power, in all cases, to activate the perception of good works in the mind realm, hence giving a munificent character to such beneficial actions. So Dorcas was one of the disciples of Christ whose ceaseless manifestation of good intentions was characterised by free-handed initiative, which she passionately displayed in form of great generosity.

Indeed, that passage of the Scripture significantly stated that she was always doing kind things for others and helping the poor, which is an indicative conclusion that it was her existing attribute that continued and remained evidentially active, till her momentary illness of unspecified kind, surfaced, leading to her tragic demise.

To that effect, Peter was sought after, implored and invited to Joppa from Lydda to raise this widely celebrated and highly esteemed Tabitha (Dorcas) from the dead. Why did they send for Peter? Through faith, Peter possessed the ability to paint the human impairment and disorder anew with signs and wonders, because he was so bigly incorporated and unco united with the Spirit of Christ.

More so, infused into Peter's voice is the official certainty of Christ's victory over death, that reached out to Dorcas, such that a peculiar form of miraculous exhibition took place in reality. Simply put, the intervention of preternatural intelligence at work in Peter's life put an end to the tragic demise waged against Dorcas. The lady was entirely freed from untimely death, and from the body decay it could've resulted in, which was a miraculous dominion and undeniable phenomenal occurrence that proceeded from the indwelling Spirit of Christ, quite foreign to ordinary humankind. Stay tuned for part 3. Shalom!

Scripture Reading - Isaiah 25:8; John 11:25-26; 1 Corinthians 15:26-27; Hebrews 2:14-15.

Guided Prayer:

Heavenly Father, I thank you enormously for always taking good care of me, and for creating me in Christ for good works. I therefore acknowledge that I have an exceptional mindset and a perceptually rich attitude for accomplishing good deeds, which is a great gain to my world, in Jesus' Name, Amen!