There are piles of good works around, near to hand

Martin Luther's Treatise on Good Works was described by Melanchthon, in a letter to John Hess, as Luther's best book.

It is a cracking little read. A short 100 page exposition of the 10 commandments that brings the Decalogue alive in a way I have read no other writer do.

A refrain throughout the book are comments like this:

Now see what kind of good works a householder and a mistress can do! How splendidly God shows us all good works so near at hand, in such a variety and so continuously that we need not ask for good works to do and could well forget all those works devised by men, the showy, far-flung works, such as making pilgrimages, building churches, seeking indulgences, and things like that. (p. 180, Selected Writings of Martin Luther: Vol 1, ed. by Theodore G. Tappert)

What is striking about Luther in this book is his evident joy that there are a plethora of good works for us to do, and they are near at hand. I must confess that this actually fills me with trepidation for the future and guilt for the past because although good works are what we are saved for (Ephesians 2:10), I have time and again chosen not to live in that salvation.

So how can I develop that joy in the opportunity to do good? Luther is clear from the beginning:

Look here! This is how you must cultivate Christ in yourself, and see how in him God holds before you his mercy and offers it to you without any prior merits of your own. It is from such a view of his grace that you must draw faith and confidence in the forgiveness of all your sins. Faith, therefore, does not originate in works; neither do works create faith, but faith must spring up and flow from the blood and wounds and death of Christ. (p.120, ibid)

As good Protestants we all know it, but all forget it. Works flow from faith, not the other way round. If you have a couple of more minutes read Luther's classic description of faith from his 'An Introduction to St. Paul's Letter to the Romans'