To What Do Our Works Give Testimony?

Jesus says to us in today’s Gospel, John 5: 31-47, “…the Father who sent me has testified on my behalf.” Jesus also says to us:  “The works that the Father gave me to accomplish…testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me.”

You and I have been sent into the world by the Father as well. At our baptism, through the faith of our parents and godparents, the Father proclaimed, as at the baptism of Jesus, “This is my beloved son/daughter in whom I am well pleased.”  Do the works that you and I now do confirm that statement, namely, that you and I are truly a beloved son/daughter of God?  Do we realize that whatever good we do that such has been given to us to accomplish by God?  And that if we are doing the work that God gave us to do and are doing it in God’s name and to glorify God that such are testimony that “the Father has sent” us?

The flip side of that belief is that if we are merely doing our own will, totally disregarding God’s will for us, as was done by the Israelites in erecting a golden calf and proclaiming such as their god, that those works do not give testimony that we have been sent by God! They become god substitutes and point to an idolatry within ourselves!