Manifesting Deeds

"But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God." (John 3:21)

So that it may be seen to others that the choices I made about my externals (my deeds) were motivated from a heart that is seeking to submit and synchronize with God's heart.

Does this mean that all the deeds are going to be right, perfect, good? Not necessarily. In fact, it is this very point that becomes a source of fear or contention. It is very easy for people to point out my errors, mistakes and failures and use them to claim that my heart is false, the my motives are evil, that I am a bad person that is not being honest about what is inside. They can easily claim based on my track record that I cannot possibly be practicing the truth because of all the mistakes they can see in my life. In short, they believe that the most important things about figuring out my identity are my faults and mistakes.

And this logic is very powerful in affecting my own thinking and perception about myself as well. Satan, the accuser, is always eager to reinforce this kind of shame and doubt about my connection and desire to follow God, to be in God, to abide in Him. And that is precisely why it is so important for me to keep coming to the light instead of trying to figure out my own motives or to justify myself against accusations.

This text does not say that it is my job to prove that what I am doing is motivated by a desire to follow God. It says that coming to the light will result in that being manifested. I am not the one responsible for manifesting to others what God is doing inside of me. I must rest in God and trust Him to manifest His work in and through me in the ways He chooses, not in order to justify myself. In fact, any time I try to justify myself or my actions I prevent Him the opportunity to justify me Himself. And that is certainly not a very good place to find myself.

But there seems to also be multiple layers of this. Parts of me are eager to come to the light to find that my motives are truly to know and follow God. But then I sense that there also may be deeper, darker areas inside of me that resist coming to the light even for me to see. Some would say that this indicates that my real self is much worse than I believe it to be. Others would say that it is simply an awareness of the sinful flesh that resides in every one of us. There is always debate going on about this and the motives of those debating this also have a great deal to do with the real meaning and truthfulness of the conclusions that they draw.

Then there are likely those who would say that all this introspection itself is the real problem. Is it? Sometimes I wonder myself. Am I trying to figure myself out and becoming more and more frustrated or am I really trying to understand God's word and how it applies to me personally? I have to conclude that in the end only God really knows the answer to these questions and that maybe He has other different questions or statements He is more interested in me dwelling on.