Skip to main content

A work like no other

A workman has a particular skill or talent which becomes evident in what is produced as a result of their work. I think this is a pretty fair way to describe what God is - the one who creates not only who we are, but what becomes of our lives. God has created us - not to live our own independent lives, but in Christ Jesus - to live lives FILLED with good works. These "good works" he has prepared for us to do - they are not random acts of kindness, but prepared, purposeful, divine appointments where we connect his love and grace with another's life through the actions we express.

God has made us what we are. He has created us in Christ Jesus to live lives filled with good works that he has prepared for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10)

In this same chapter, our writer focused on the church coming together, not with each individual doing their own thing, but in unity. There is purpose and intent in being in unity and it takes some getting used to as each individual has to lay down what they see as their "rights". The "blending" of personalities in any purposeful intent takes some amount of effort. We see the "effort" of unity - it begins not with what we do to accomplish it, but with what God did in us to provide the beginning of this unity! Even the grace to live in unity is an action of God in our lives. Apart from the "workman", the workmanship is useless! If you have ever created something, you might have had a few "fails" in the creation process, like when you burn a batch of cookies or have a new recipe just bomb big time. Your "workmanship" didn't live up to the potential you hoped to exhibit in the end. This is the case with much of what we set out to do on our own - we bomb big time! Why? It is simple - we are God's workmanship, so trying to display our own "creative process" is kind of like telling the workman we'd rather be burnt cookies!

God (the workman) has made (past tense) us (you and I) what we are (present tense). Do you see anything here? There is both past and present tense in this sentence structure. The past tense, has made, describes the finished work of Christ in our lives. In God's eyes, we are perfect - created in the image of God, redeemed by the blood of the perfect Lamb of God, complete in every way. In the present tense, we are chosen to do something which reflects his workmanship like nothing else can - living lives filled with the good works he has PREPARED for us to do. Sometimes we set out to do something and in the end, we realize God has done something even greater than we ever imagined. It was not because we did it, but because he prepared ahead of time for us to be an instrument of his purpose in that moment. This is amazing to me - how God orchestrates the activities of my life and yours, totally aware of each choice we will make before we make it, and aligning every opportunity for us to display his workmanship so perfectly. The "has prepared" is past tense, but it is lived out in the present tense. The workman envisioned each good work - then he orchestrated the means by which his workmanship would be displayed!

I have come to the conclusion a long time ago that the best of my resolutions to do something a particular way are really worthless because I don't know the end from the beginning! At best, I set out on a course I hope will lead me to the desired end. What I have come to realize is the importance of relying not on my own plan, but on the prepared purpose of the workman in my life! In "resolving" to "do" certain things, let's not lose sight of the "prepared" purpose of our lives. We can only find that prepared purpose by consulting the one who created us in to fulfill these things in the first place - the DIVINE workman - God himself. Just sayin!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What did obedience cost Mary and Joseph?

As we have looked at the birth of Christ, we have considered the fact he was born of a virgin, with an earthly father so willing to honor God with his life that he married a woman who was already pregnant.  In that day and time, a very taboo thing.  We also saw how the mother of Christ was chosen by God and given the dramatic news that she would carry the Son of God.  Imagine her awe, but also see her tremendous amount of fear as she would have received this announcement, knowing all she knew about the time in which she lived about how a woman out of wedlock showing up pregnant would be treated.  We also explored the lowly birth of Jesus in a stable of sorts, surrounded by animals, visited by shepherds, and then honored by magi from afar.  The announcement of his birth was by angels - start to finish.  Mary heard from an angel (a messenger from God), while Joseph was set at ease by a messenger from God on another occasion - assuring him the thing he was about to do in marrying Mary wa

A brilliant display indeed

Love from the center of who you are ; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply ; practice playing second fiddle. Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder. (Romans 12:9-12) Integrity and Intensity don't seem to fit together all that well, but they are uniquely interwoven traits which actually complement each other. "Love from the center of who you are; don't fake it." God asks for us to have some intensity (fervor) in how we love (from the center of who we are), but he also expects us to have integrity in our love as he asks us to be real in our love (don't fake it). They are indeed integral to each other. At first, we may only think of integrity as honesty - some adherence to a moral code within. I believe there is a little more to integrity than meets the eye. In the most literal sense,

Do me a favor

If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care—then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand. (Philippians 2:1-4) Has God's love made ANY difference in your life? What is that difference? Most of us will likely say that our lives were changed for the good, while others will say there was a dramatic change. Some left behind lifestyles marked by all manner of outward sin - like drug addiction, alcoholism, prostitution, or even thievery. There are many that will admit the things they left behind were just a bit subtler - what we can call inward sin - things like jealousy,