And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming.  If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him. I John 2:28, 29

Our brother, the Apostle John, could not be more clear.  A person does not earn salvation by doing good but a person does good because the Spirit of the Lord is in him or her to do good.  This underlies John’s witness.

He does not discourage a person who is not born again from doing good.  John would be the first to encourage everyone to do good.  It is good to do good.  It is even better to be good.  But that is not the point.  The point is that those in whom the Spirit of the Lord lives will do good.

I use the expression “do good” to open the meaning a bit more of John’s word of doing “what is right.”  In these powerful sentences John does not clarify what doing “right” is.  He simply says, “if you know that he (God) is righteous…”  then you can discern what doing “what is right” is.

This is not simply a play on words. It is at the heart of the saving power of Jesus Christ.  We are saved to do good or to do good works, we do not do good works in order to be saved.  As I hear the heart of John, that is what he is teaching, otherwise he would go into a long discussion of what is right and what is wrong. That is not his point here.  He simply says that if the Spirit of God is leading a person the result will be that that person will do what is right, what is good.

I thank God that I was brought up with a strong emphasis on living as a Christian.  I probably knew that first, I must give my entire heart and will to God and yield to his guidance alone, but experiencing that was another matter.  If you are like me, that was always the nub of the issue.  Am I ready to continue to turn over to God the direction of my life or am I going to try to run it on my own?  I am now 88 years old and I find that I must continue, even today, to relinquish control of my life to the Lord Jesus.  Only then am I at rest.  I am learning to “continue in Him.”

My desire is to be found among his “dear children” as John calls us.   May that be your desire as well.