This Week’s Passage: 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
The focus of my pondering is verse 10.
Poiema – Workmanship. Work of art. Masterpiece. The Greek word sounds like our word for poem. Our God is a creative God and we are His crowning achievement. “Good” was the word in Genesis used to describe everything else God created. “Very good” were the words used to describe His creation of man. God was a VERY good artist and as an artist He takes great delight in His works of art – namely us. This explains why He loves us so much; why He is jealous regarding us; why He is angered when His creation is marred; why He went as far as the cross to restore His masterpiece and make us “new creations.”
We were created to do good works – The question that begs to be asked is this: What good works has God prepared in advance for me to do? This is a part of the great adventure of walking with God – figuring out the answer to this question. I think we make it a lot harder question than it should be. We fret over what God’s will is for us. We wonder what it is that God wants us to do with our life. There is an easy way to know the answer. Walk with God. Abide in Him. Pay attention to His Word. Give a listening ear to Him in prayer. God will make it clear to us what we should be doing if we are walking close to Him. So if you perhaps are wondering what good works God has in store for you – then my suggestion is to draw closer to God. Do what you need to do to make this happen and I suspect that you will be presented with lots of opportunities to “do good works.”
Then do them!
I’m just sayin’!
Next Week’s Passage: Ephesians 2:11-18