A GOOD WORK OR GOOD WORKS?

Jas 1:22    But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.

Jas 1:23    For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:

Jas 1:24    For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.

Jas 1:25    But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. 

Recently, I was reading my Daily Bread devotional, and the above verses that went with it.  The phrase But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, literally jumped out at me.  I hadn't realized that when Jesus sets you free from your old life where you are a slave to self and you try to be good with good works, that this is what the perfect law of liberty is referring to.  James makes a clear distinction that once we are saved, if we just simply read the Word and do not act on it, we will fall back into our old ways, and we will not be free.  I read the Matthew Henry commentary, and he said that the papists tried to generalize the phrase to doing "good deeds," but the Scripture actually means the good work that God has specifically given us to do, so it says, "the good work." It doesn't say, "the good works," in the plural.  In other words, it is a very individual thing.  Whatever God has told us to do we are to do "the good work," and we will be blessed in our deed. How do we know what He has asked us to do?  We take it from His Word, and then He confirms it to us.  Many times the thought or the idea, which will line up with His Word as righteous and true, will dominate our thoughts and will persist until we obey, and do it.    

I thought about the idea of works and how some churches become so formal and so organized that they speak more of good works and less about a personal relationship with Jesus, and specific works we do out of love and obedience to the Lord.  I wondered why they do this, and then Galatians 6:12 came to mind: 

As many as desire to make a fair shew in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised; only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ. 

It is much easier to do good works, then it is to pray about what the Lord wants us specifically to do.  That way, we can please ourselves and feel good, or perhaps feel we fit in more with what others expect of us to do, and not take any flack for not doing it their way. 

Christians who know the truth can even persuade you to do good works that you have not been specifically directed to do by the Holy Spirit.  They may not have prayed about it themselves, and so they assume that what they are asking you to do in the name of "good works" is for everyone to do, including you.  They may use guilt if you do not do or cannot do what they have asked, but guilt is not of God, even though it may "feel" like you should do what they have asked.  We are never to put our trust in another person, but to put our trust in God, and do what pleases Him first and foremost.  He fulfills all in all, and meets our needs, however He chooses to do so.