"For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."
-Ephesians 2:10
Yesterday we studied the first ten verses of chapter 2 in Ephesians. This passage basically explains the gospel message in ten verses. In my last post, I compared our situation to adoption. Today, I will be comparing our situation to death and life. Verse one kicks it off right away- "as for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins". The obvious question that was asked yesterday was, "what does it mean to have been dead in our sins"? Clearly, we were not dead physically, so what does Paul mean? A member of YDJ brought up a great point; there is a difference between living and existing. Existing is just being physically alive, but having no spiritual life. Living is to be living spiritually, in communion with God.
When we are spiritually dead, all we can think about is satisfying our cravings and desires for sin. Think about when you last craved something. For me, I often crave junk food, especially when I am at work. When you crave something, it's very hard to stop thinking about it. Eventually, you often just satisfy your craving. Unfortunately, often times the things we crave are not good for our well-being. The same is true of sin. When we want to sin, it's very hard to get it out of our mind. Often times, we just give in to the temptation. However, sin is not good for our spiritual well-being. Sin causes God's wrath to be on us. Sin makes us dead.
As I talked about last week, God did not leave us to die. He made us alive in Christ. Ephesians tells us another key point; not only are we made alive in Christ, but with Christ. Not only does God make us alive, but He raises us with Christ in the heavenly realms. The passage also says that we are saved by mercy and grace. In other words, we do not deserve to be alive. An interesting point was brought up by the discussion leader yesterday. Sometimes Christians get the idea that they aren't as bad of a sinner as someone else. They think that there is no way they can get the same punishment as other people. Think about physical death for a moment. Say that person A is dead for 10 minutes, and person B is dead for one year. Is person B any more dead than person A? Not really.
Another thing about being dead is that you can't do anything. When's the last time you saw a dead person contributing to society? When's the last time you saw a dead person do anything at all? The same is true of spiritual death. We can't do anything to change our situation. That is why we need grace and mercy. There's nothing we can do to make ourselves alive. That's why Jesus had to make us alive. Only He is able to change our situation. "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."
The last thing I would like to talk about is verse 10, which I have written above. What is the importance of this verse? This verse is vitally important actually. One person mentioned yesterday that because we know that God created us, we know where we came from and where we are going. Think about that- we know that God made us, and that He made us to do good works. Another important thing to realize is that we are God's handiwork. What image comes to your mind when you hear handiwork, or workmanship? To me, I think about woodworking. A person crafting a table by hand means that they put in great care and effort into the table. God crafted us with His hands, and put great care and effort into us. He did not make us to be dead, but to be made alive in Christ.
-Smart
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