To understand how loyalty and favor works, or as it is more commonly known, faith and grace, imagine a powerful king working to bring about order in the midst of anarchy and chaos, and the running loose of robber barons.
He marches through the country and makes a stop at every individual state. Before the king arrives at your doorstep, you must decide if you have the resources to resist him and keep your independence or must ask for terms of peace. No sovereign king wishes to adopt a scorched earth policy, a dead subject is not a useful subject, so there IS room for negotiation. Remember, this was a very common situation in ancient times, of suzerains and vassaldoms. The sovereign will accept full surrender, or taxes, or service depending on what the vassal has to offer, or maybe how strong his bargaining position is. Some have such power that simply an offer not to stab the sovereign in the back is sufficient. Others must offer much more, their armies being so weak that to offer less would mean certain extermination.
Of course, some sovereign leaders are so powerful and rich that their goal is only to attain fame, as kingdom builders. They require nothing, except that the vassal be followers, imitate him in bringing law and order in their immediate surroundings. In return, the sovereign offers all his resources to help in the effort, so that he will have a beautiful, peaceful and orderly empire.
This then illustrates how loyalty and grace works . As long as the vassal is loyal, agrees with the goals of the sovereign and adopts his methods of achieving those results, he remains in the favor, the good books, of the sovereign.
Paul worked to bring his life into alignment with God's goals, and uses God's resources towards this end. Maybe work is a bad choice of a word for what he is actually doing. He is identifying the deeds of the body that needs to be worked on, as revealed by the spotlight that God brings to bear on his life. A slow process, because most people justify why they do what they do, and try to make it legitimate and reasonable to cling to, until God's searchlight swings around and reveals it for what it really is, a habit or deed that is not in alignment with God's kingdom. God makes His views on the issue known and persuades us to change our mind, till we agree with Him. Of course some of us are like the merciless steward who would not forgive even though he was forgiven of a greater debt, who totally lose the plot and need to be chastised or worse. To those who are NOT clueless, who begin to realise what God's Kingdom stands for, it is then that God gives us the resources to put to death those deeds of the body.
As John puts it so well:
1 John 1:5This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. 6If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; 7but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. 8If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.
What is faith? Faith is not sinning:
1 John 3:4Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. 5You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin. 6No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him.
Abiding in Christ, is not serving the world or self, but serving God, like Joshua who abandoned serving Egypt, then abandoned serving even self, to serve God, caring not even to preserve his very life, but offering it for God's use.
This is faith, this is sinlessness, not narrowly defined as a moral quality, but as a recognition and submission to the greatest power. This is loyalty.
Parallel seen here:
Genesis 22:10Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 12He said, “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”
As Paul walked in the light and put to death the deeds of his body, con-fessing, same-speaking, agreeing with God's view on every aspect of his life, THAT agreement was loyalty, and loyalty was rewarded with favor, grace. The blood of God's Son, Jesus cleansed him from unrighteousness. When he prayed for the thorn in his flesh to be removed, to prevent him from becoming proud, being misled into believing his perfecting was saving him, God let him know that being in His good books, His favor, His grace, was what counted. Imagine, being in God's good books is the same as being cleansed of all the deeds of the body!
2 Corinthians 12:9And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.