Ephesians 2:7-9 April 7, 2014

Suzanne Burton      

Ephesians 2:7-9       

April 7, 2014              

. . . God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 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.  For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast.  For we are god's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Free gift-- no purchase necessary! We have all seen these words on circulars or on advertisements.  What did we learn as young people?  "If something sounds too good to be true, it is" and not to be taken in by these kinds of hoaxes or scams.  But God does give us a free gift of His grace.  Maybe it is so hard for some of us to accept because it is so contrary to human nature.  We don't usually give gifts to others for no reason or to someone we barely know, much less someone who may have been unkind to us.  But that is exactly what God does.  He gives us the grand prize of salvation and His everlasting love and favor, and for no reason.  We could never be good enough or perfect enough to earn this precious gift.  

I think I chose this passage because it is the key to our faith in many ways, yet is one of the hardest truths for me to truly feel in my heart.  God loves us just the way we are, imperfections and all.  We can't scurry around in frantic activity to please Him or earn his favor.  He loves us just because we ARE.   Recently we had a large family gathering at my grandmother's funeral.  When I thought about her love for us, it occurred to me that Grandmother loved us just because we existed, because we were part of her family.  Nothing else really mattered.  Of course she was proud of our college degrees, our jobs, our families and so forth.  But before any of those things, she just loved each grandchild because they had been born.  That is a mirror of God's love. 

It should be the way we view others as well.  Each person on this earth is God's workmanship.  None of us is better than another in God's eyes, so why do humans spend so much time competing to see who can be the best at this or that?  Even in the church it seems some are working really hard to be seen as the "best" Christian when viewed against others.  We need to not only accept God's grace for ourselves, but for others.  Everyone is precious in God's sight and deserving of the same free gift of grace.  Living that truth can liberate us from so many petty disagreements and jealousies.  We do good works together because God made us for this purpose, not in order to earn points in his heavenly kingdom.  

Prayer:  Lord, guide my eyesight and my heart this day to see others in Your grace.  Let me truly feel your equalizing love in my soul so that I can share this gift of grace in the world.  Amen.