Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

The principals are these:

1. As a Christian, God does not accept me based on my performance.  Rather, he accepts based on the work of Christ to give me a way to God.
2. We can do “good works” for God as an outgrowth of our relationship with Him, not as a way to earn that relationship.

Not performance.

To use a word – grace.  Which is defined as “free and unmerited favor.”

This second principle has been amply expressed in a Bible study I attend in Salem, Oregon where I live for seven months a year.

The study – it is called Links and is part of a successful effort around the country to merge golf and the Bible – is hosted by my golf club in Salem, Illahe Hills Golf and Country Club.

One of my best friends also attends and has made this statement several times in recent months:  “We can do ‘good works’ for God as an outgrowth of our relationship with Him, not as a way to earn salvation.”

As one example, those of us in this Bible study contributed to a fund, which then was dispensed to Illahe workers who often made just enough money from their jobs to make ends meet.

We didn’t want to know these recipients; we just wanted to do “good works” – in this case, just a bit of money for each.  So, we asked a top management official at Illahe to pass on the cash, a process that would guarantee that didn’t know the recipients and we didn’t “get credit” for this action.

Back to the Bible.  It has a lot of negative things to say about “works of the law.”  The apostle Paul stresses repeatedly that “we’re justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law.”

But good works means more than that.  The phrase “good works” is used 13 times in the New Testament, with eight occurrences in the Pastoral Epistles.  Without exception, the phrase is used in a positive, non-ironic way to describe exemplary Christian activity.

Few chapters are as relentless in advocating good works as Titus 3, though it is one of the shortest books in the New Testament.

This is exactly what Paul says in Titus 3:8:  “The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works.”

Now, to put a closer point on this, I refer to my daughter. 

If she has a bit of money in her pocket and sees a homeless person, she often stops to give that person the money, saying that “he or she needs it more than I do.”

Also, my wife told me that on her recent trip to London with our daughter, they came across a person sitting in the rain who held a sign that she needed just a bit of money to buy a hostel for the night. 

My wife and daughter gave her that bit of money and felt good about doing so, not to get credit for a good deed, but that were expressing one of God’s important pieces of advice for real Christians – take time and energy to do good work for God, which often means helping people who are destitute and afraid.

So, my wife’s and my commitment is to continue to be alert for doing “good work” in the sense of what the Bible defines as that kind of work.