God’s Grace At Work

A summary of Ephesians 2:8-10 says, "God saved you by his grace when you believed.  This is all his idea, and his work.  You can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God.  All we do is trust him enough to let him do it.  The salvation you receive is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.  We are all God’s masterpiece, created anew in Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, so we can do the good things he had planned for us to do long ago and we had better get going."

Bottom Line:
It is by God’s grace alone that we are saved.  This is all part of his plan and his doing.  All we need to do is believe and trust him enough with our lives to let him do it.  So we can’t take any credit for this, it is not a reward for good things we do or have done, but instead is a gift from God.  Given this, we would have no reason to be boastful or prideful in our own doing.  We are God’s masterpiece, created new in Christ to join him in the work he is doing and what he has planned for us to do long before we even knew it.  We better get going and get after it.

What This Means for Me:
God loves me and He knows there is nothing I can do to make myself right with him or earn my way to heaven, I can’t possibly do enough good things to earn it.  He put together a way for me through his son’s sacrifice to be right again. And this is simply a gift, not something I have earned.  So by his grace (his unmerited favor) he saves me from my hurts, habits and hang-ups.  In essence God took my problems and made them his.  And He saves me not just for myself but for his purpose.  He wants a relationship with me and want to do things in my life that only can be done through me.  Unfortunately at times I still try to be in control, doing things my way.  I need to just quit trying to do things on my own.  I just need to relax, let go and let God be God.  Let him teach me through my quiet time with him and my study of his truths laid out in his Word.  I learned a great acrostic from Rick Warren this morning on “grace”, it is simply:
God’s
Riches
At
Christ’s
Expense