Lee Dorsey’s Workin’ in a Coalmine is a classic…

Workin’ in a coal mine
Goin’ down down down
Workin’ in a coal mine
Whop! about to slip down

Ephesians has a similar ditty:

For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. –Ephesians 2:10

Transformation into the Kingdom of Light does not happen because of anything we do; to coin it in a more churchy fashion, we are not saved by works. That transformation, that salvation, comes only through what we call “faith.”

The value of works is that they serve as a type of taste test. Put on a blindfold and let someone feed you various morsels of different foods. Your experience–your “tastebuds”–tells you what is being eaten. You are not going to mistake a piece of steak for vanilla ice cream, a peach is not an apple and vinegar is not ice tea.

It’s pretty straightforward.

Spiritually, the same premise is true. If you live in the Light, you’ll look like light; if you live in the Darkness, you won’t look like light. He who is in the Kingdom will do good works, otherwise can he really claim to be in the Kingdom?

So how do we go about defining what these “works” we’ve been prepared for to do?

Whop! About to slip down…