"Be" First, then "Do"

"Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit" (Matthew 7:17)

While good deeds cannot make a man good, it is likewise true that everything a good man does is good because he is a good man. Holy deeds are holy not because they are one kind of deed instead of another, but because a holy man performs them.

Every person should see to it that he is fully cleansed from all sin, entirely surrendered to the whole will of God and filled with the Holy Spirit. Then he will not be known as what he "does", but as what he "is". He will be a man of God first and anything else second: a man of God who paints or mines coal or farms or preaches ... but always a man of God. That and not the kind of work he does will determine the quality of his deeds.

We need to remember that this world is not so much a place for doing things as for making character. Right in the midst of what some people call drudgery is the very best place to get the transformed, transfigured life.

God weigheth more with how much love a man worketh, than how much he doeth. He doeth much that loveth much. He doeth much that doeth a thing well.

~A. W. Tozer~