Ephesians 2:4 - The Grace Secret

 

Ephesians 2:4

 

NLT

But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much,

 

NKJ

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,

 

But God…two words that can change your whole mindset if you are honest with yourself. Those six little letters can run big in your life, they do in mine, and I have asked God to remind me daily of His richness. Because those two words are not followed by anything that I can offer God. It’s HIS rich mercy and HIS great love. Because I am unlovable, I am a “child of wrath” (v.3), I am still capable of sinning. It’s HIS great love that has made me who I am and that’s still growing because I am far from complete.

 

I cannot make myself lovable to God. If my mindset is that I have something that God needs, then that’s nothing more than pride. But God wants me! But God wants you! God both has love and gives loves to us. It doesn’t matter who you are…”For God so loved the world”

 

That extends to the unlovable, to the children of wrath. To a young man who made a terrible choice and took a life. That young man is still loved by God, still has a chance to experience HIS richness of mercy and HIS great love. Through Jesus that love is extended to us as believers; but it’s also offered to unbelievers. There is only one difference between me and an unbeliever; one difference between a child of God and a child of wrath…one decision.

 

“We must stop trying to make ourselves lovable to God, and simply receive His great love while recognizing that we are unworthy of it. This is the grace secret of the Christian life. “

~ Enduring Word Commentary

 

Accept Jesus as your Savior today…don’t wait.

 

Resting in His presence today,

Pastor Cory

Ephesians 2:10 ~ You're a Masterpiece

 

Ephesians 2:10

NKJV

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

NLT

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

 

Masterpiece: a work of outstanding artistry, skill, or workmanship.

 

I’ve heard this word used to describe everything from food to a play in a football game. I think when we do this, it kind of cheapens the word. Is a piece of cake a masterpiece or is it just a piece of cake. Not doubt, it’s good cake…but it’s still just cake. a good play in a football game, is still just a play in football game. How do each of these compare to the thousand of other cakes and plays? Is it just a masterpiece until the next really good one comes along?

 

God calls us His workmanship, His masterpiece, or His artwork, from the Greek word poiēma. We are something crafted, with skill and a purpose, by God, for His purposes. Specifically, we are "created in Christ Jesus for good works." Good works do not give us salvation, but they are absolutely meant to be the result of salvation.

 

But I want to focus on the creation, that God created, and is called His masterpiece. You and I are that MASTERPIECE! God created us with outstanding artistry and skill. Yet, we often don’t act like it. We are "created or formed" by Him, not only in the general sense in which all things are made by Him, but in that special sense which is denoted by the new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). We are made new in Jesus Christ, anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

 

It's time to start acting like we are masterpieces!  No longer are you to fat, to skinny, not pretty enough, not skillful enough; all these things that we as people tell ourselves, that come straight from the mouth of satan. You are a masterpiece…God made us that way with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  You don’t have to submit to any of the desires that our natural bodies throw at us.  START ACTING LIKE YOU’RE SPECIAL! You are, Christ died to prove it.

 

I’m a masterpiece,

cej

Ephesins 2:8 - Grace?

 

Ephesians 2:8

NKJV

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God. 

NLT

God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 

 

In 1829, a Pennsylvania man named George Wilson was sentenced by the United States Court to be hanged to death for robbery and murder. President Andrew Jackson pardoned him, but the prisoner refused the pardon. Wilson insisted that he was not pardoned unless he accepted it. That was a point of law never raised before, and President Jackson called on the Supreme Court to decide. Chief Justice John Marshall gave the following decision. “A pardon is a paper, the value of which depends upon its acceptance by the person implicated. If it is refused, it is no pardon. George Wilson must be hanged.” And he was.

 

As I read this morning’s devo, the above short story was given. It got me to thinking about how I treat the grace given to me. I read in a commentary that the more familiar we are with certain words, the more we have an attitude of a shoulder shrug and “ho-hum”.  Words like grace and saved and faith; we hear them so often we can lose sight of the depth and width of them. Grace is a word that Christians throw around like it’s a frisbee. I’m guilty of the attitude of “I got it, I know what it means”. But do I really get it? Man, if I really understood the idea of grace…would I do some of the things I do? We could discuss grace for pages and pages, but I want to just stick with a little piece of it.

 

George Wilson refused his pardon, don’t know why…but he did. On the surface, I think everyone loves the idea of grace.  Somebody else paying for my wrong doing?  Heck yeah…sign me up. That’s what Christ did for us. Our sin separated us from God; our sin made us stained. God is holy and only things that are holy can be near God.  There was atonement, or payment, that needed to be made to cover our sins.  A The payment for our sins was death, pure and simple. Death. Something had to die to atone for our actions. In the old testament, there were sacrifices that covered their sins. Blood for blood. But they were only covered, each person still had to make atonement daily, weekly, yearly…

God chose a way for us to come completely back to him with a perfect payment for our sins. He sent His Son to not just cover our sins, but to take then away completely; for those that accepted Him as Savior.

 

I did, I accepted Him as my Savior. But for a long time, He wasn’t my Lord. There’s a difference. The difference is what we do with our idea of what grace is. If grace is “somebody else paying for my sins”, which is what Christ did for us, then we must understand deeper what this is. To me, grace is this definition and then some. If I love Jesus and am thankful for what He did for me…am I honoring that sacrifice? Do my actions show that I truly understand the sacrifice that was made for me? To be honest, sometimes they don’t. Someone once told me “when you know better, then you do better”. I want to serve my Lord better; I want to serve other people better; I want my faithfulness to be honoring to God.

 

What will you do with your grace?

 

Faithful today,

cej