#18 2016 Devotional Eph. 2:10. The purpose of these devotionals is to draw closer to God by memorizing selected passages of Scripture. Further, to view the passage in context and grow spiritually by applying His Word to our daily living with family, friends and others. All passages are taken from the NIV.
Ephesians 2:10
10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Chapter 2 is about being “made alive in Christ”. It fallows on the what we may call the foundation of the church both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. Chapter one sets the justification of God’s grace alone: God, “who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight (v 3b,4). The love of God in Christ Jesus is the foundation of the church (Ch. 1:5-7). Therefore, we build on the foundation of Jesus to be the church, His Body in the world today!
Chapter 2 also is about “made alive in Christ” as Jews and Gentiles. Today, Jew and Gentile is not an issue but the truth that God’s grace is extended to all people of the world is an issue in many denominations. For followers of Jesus it is easy to look at that decedent amoral person at work or in the neighborhood as not redeemable. Humanly speaking that is a comfortable place but it flies in the face of the purpose of the church. Evangelism is not the only purpose of the church; we are to praise God with songs of worship, fellowship and love for fellow church members, draw closer to God by His Word and living for Christ in our personal family life. The comprehensive purpose of the church dictates that as followers of Jesus, all of life is worship. The verse we pick for this week makes that very clear.
“For we are God’s handiwork”, We have nothing to do with who we are. It is God’s grace and the power of the Spirit in us that gives us the faith to believe and thereby being who God makes us to be. Many of us want to shrink back from that truth; what about our short comings and down right sinfulness? The amazing thing is that God makes us who we are but He also allows us to make choices. We are not robots, we have a free will, Jesus wants us to choose for Him; in a mysterious way not humanly understood God’s choosing (Ch.1:4) works together with our choosing Him.
The verse goes on with: “created in Christ Jesus”. God’s creation was perfect, in peaceful harmony before the fall, now we are recreated in our spirit (heart) to bring us back to God in harmony and peace. Re creation is a process, on going, “I am making everything new!” (Rev. 21:5).
The verse continues with “to do good works”. As followers of Jesus what are good works? Good works are whatever we do in the name of Jesus, we do them out of gratitude not out of obligation or to work for our salvation. We cannot earn credit with God in this life, our faith in Jesus is our credit and is our guaranty of salvation.
Yet, going back to our verse “which God prepared in advance for us to do,” that takes us back to God choosing us before creation. There is a much larger purpose, God wants to take all his people back to Himself. God has chosen us to be a part of that purpose. We are blessed and God is glorified!
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Heavenhigh 