The Good Work of God
Last Update: 2025, January 29
Proverbs 4:23 reveals a very important soteriological truth. It tells us something about the human heart. Since the issues of life originate from the heart, we must keep a close watch on it. The choices and decisions we make in life are connected to the heart in some mysterious way. The society we’re living in targets the hearts and minds of little children because they know that once the heart and mind are shaped and molded a certain way, then all of life will flow from it. That’s how important the heart is! And we’re to guard it!
If we’re admonished to look after the heart, with all diligence, how much more when God seeks to save a lost man, whose heart is lost, deceitful, and wicked? That’s precisely what Scripture teaches. God alone has an unfiltered view of the human heart, and He starts there—the heart—and works outwardly. We know this to be true because Proverbs 21:1 states, “The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, like the rivers of water; He turns it wherever He wishes.”
God must work in the heart because a new heart is needed, otherwise left to itself the heart will not seek God (Proverbs 1:20-33). Scripture tells us that the heart speaks (Matthew 15:18), it also plans (Proverbs 16:1,9), takes action (Ecclesiastes 8:11; Isaiah 32:6), and SEEKS.
Psalms 27:8
When You said, “Seek My face,”
My heart said to You, “Your face, LORD, I will seek.”
That’s how important the heart is. It is the seeking God with the whole heart that we will find Him (Jeremiah 29:13).
Proverbs 17:20
“He who has a deceitful heart finds no good…”
God is the ultimate good, and a deceitful heart won’t find Him because it hates instruction, despises correction (Proverbs 5:12-14), and has no room for wisdom (Proverbs 17:16).
God working in the heart is the good work of God that Philippians 1:6 speaks of, “…He who has begun a good work in you…” And how do we know that this good work involves the turning of the heart (Proverbs 4:23 and 21:1)? The clue lies in the preceding verses, beginning with verse 3, “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you…” Thanking God! Why? God was at work…, “for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it…”
In case you missed it, they endured and persevered in their fellowship from the very first day they heard and believed the Gospel (cf. 1 John 2:19). We see this with Lydia. She heard Paul, and God opened her heart, and what is the result of that? Pay attention: “And when she [Lydia] and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, ‘…come to my house and stay.’” When the heart is open, it opens to God and others in demonstration of love.
God does not fail in what He started. The Philippians and we Christians today will endure and persevere because of the good work God wrought in us. Paul was confident of this!
The Chinese, Lao Tzu, has this proverb, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” And for God and Christians, our journey here on earth to heaven begins with the heart, the new birth, “ye must be born again!” That is the good work of God (cf. John 6:29)! That is the gift (cf. Ephesians 2:8-9)!
Jeremiah 3:10
And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah has not turned to Me with her whole heart, but in pretense,” says the LORD.Jeremiah 24:7
Then I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the LORD; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, for they shall return to Me with their whole heart.