The Good Work

 DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE EPHESIANS

THE GOOD WORK

Eph 2:1-10

2:1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions — it is by grace you have been saved. 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.

NIV

There is no question that we have been saved by grace through our faith in Jesus Christ, and we who were once dead are now made alive in Christ. However, there is more for us as God has raised us up with Christ and has seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus. We are not sure how that all works as we are still here on this earth, and yet we are told that we are seated with Christ in the heavenly realms, which would be at the right hand of God. Perhaps that is metaphorical for the fact that because we are the image bearer of God, that is because we were made in God’s image, we are already in the place of honor, at his right hand. However, we take it, the fact is we are seated with Christ, at the right hand of the Father in the heavenly realms. This should give us a sense of how we should be living while we are still standing on Earth in His presence. Because we have been redeemed and belong to God and have the right to be called children of God, we are already standing in his presence, and have the Spirit dwelling within us as that guarantee of our inheritance in the heavenly realms. All this is because of the gift from God and His incomparable riches of his grace. This simply blows our minds, because of how unworthy we are to accept the incomparable grace that He has expressed in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. The Father sent Jesus to suffer the injustice inflicted by man on the cross, which was His plan all along, even before the time of creation. It is difficult to fully grasp that truth, but we do so in faith believing everything that God has said. There is a reason for our unworthiness because it is by grace we are saved, and not by anything we could ever do. No works whatsoever could qualify us for salvation so we cannot boast for any reason why we are seated with Christ in the heavenly realms. At times, it seems that we believers are in some kind of competition as to how many “good works” we can do, in an effort to prove how spiritual we are, and what good Christians we are. We think this comes from the misunderstanding of the fact that we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. This can be seen that good works are the proof of our salvation, that is because we are saved by the grace of God, He saved us to do works for His kingdom. That sounds like the only reason he saved us is so that we can work for Him, and because we are his children, that seems like He is using us as child labor, which we know cannot be the truth. If this is about our need to do the good works that He prepared in advance for us, we then are back at his competition thing about how many good works we can do and thus look good to others, more than looking good to God, because we already look good to Him, because we are in Christ. But if the good works that God prepared in advance for us to do are connected to the question that was asked of Jesus about what work God requires of us, then that good work God prepared in advance was to believe in the one He sent, since that was the plan before the foundation of the earth. Believing in Jesus is the only good work we could ever truly do that would please God.