(The Character of Sonship and the Good Works That Reveal Their Source)

September 20th brings together character and expression. Chambers distinguishes God-likeness from merely doing good things, while Spurgeon speaks of good works that cause others to recognize that a person has been with Jesus. Together they establish an important order. Good works are not the source of Christian character; they are its expression. The life must first receive its character from God, and what is formed in communion becomes visible in ways that direct attention beyond the believer to Jesus.

Christian Character Is More Than Good-Doing

Chambers writes:

“The true expression of Christian character is not in good-doing, but in God-likeness.” (My Utmost for His Highest)

Chambers draws a distinction between activity and character.

A person may do something good for many reasons. Compassion, duty, social expectation, personal conviction, or even the desire to be regarded as good can produce outwardly admirable actions.

Christian character reaches deeper.

Chambers calls it God-likeness.

This does not mean that the believer becomes divine. It means that the character of God revealed through Jesus increasingly becomes visible through a human life.

Jesus did not simply perform good works. His works expressed the relationship from which he lived. His compassion, mercy, truth, patience, and obedience revealed the Father because his life continually proceeded from the Father.

God-likeness therefore cannot be manufactured through imitation alone.

The issue is not simply:

“What good thing should I do?”

The deeper question is:

“What life is finding expression through me?”

Good Works Become Light

Spurgeon writes:

“Let your light shine before men; let your good works be such, that when men look upon you, they shall know that you have been with Jesus.” (Morning and Evening)

Spurgeon does speak of good works, but notice where those works direct attention.

Toward Jesus.

The works are light because they reveal something beyond themselves.

This keeps good works from becoming religious performance. Their significance is not found merely in the deed itself, nor in the recognition received by the person who performs it.

Something of Jesus has become visible.

To have “been with Jesus” speaks of relationship. The believer encounters in the Son the life of perfect dependence upon God—the life in which the Father’s character was made known.

As that filial life shapes the believer, outward expression begins to carry its character.

Mercy becomes more than something we perform.

Love becomes more than something we attempt to produce.

Goodness becomes more than adherence to an external standard.

The light shines because the life has received something to express.

Where the Two Meet: Character Becomes Expression

Chambers guards us from reducing Christian life to good-doing.

Spurgeon guards us from making inward spirituality invisible.

Together they preserve the proper order.

Character precedes expression.

Communion produces fruit.

God-likeness becomes visible through good works.

This is very different from attempting to become God-like by accumulating good deeds. Self-direction can imitate goodness while remaining its own source.

Sonship begins with reception.

Jesus revealed the Father because he lived from the Father. The believer likewise becomes light as the character revealed in the Son finds expression through a life responsive to God.

The good work then becomes more than an isolated act.

It becomes a window through which another person may glimpse the source.

Pastoral Orientation

September 20th invites us to move beyond measuring spiritual life by how much good we accomplish.

Good works matter.

But they are fruit, not source.

The Holy Spirit operates upon the human spirit, forming responsiveness to what God has revealed through the Son. As the spirit of sonship responds, the character seen in Jesus increasingly becomes visible through ordinary human life.

Then goodness does not need to advertise itself.

The light simply shines.

Others may encounter patience where self would have reacted.

Mercy where self would have condemned.

Love where self would have withdrawn.

Truth without self-exaltation.

And when such things appear, their deepest significance is not that the believer has become exceptionally good.

They reveal something of Jesus.

This is Christian character: not self attempting to become more impressive through good-doing, but the life received from God taking visible form.

The light shines.

The works become visible.

But the attention ultimately moves beyond the believer—toward the Son who revealed the character of the Father.