In Christ: Know It, Live It - 32 (Not BY Works, but FOR Works)

"For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them" Ephesians 2:10.

Though our great salvation is a free gift from God and involves NO MERITORIOUS WORK from us, this great salvation IS a salvation FOR WORKS. That is, we are NOT saved BY works, but FOR works. This fact we must NEVER lose sight of or put in the wrong order.

RELIGION is works FOR salvation. CHRISTIANITY is works resulting FROM salvation. One sees works as the CAUSE, the other sees works as the RESULT. One is LEGALISM, the other is GRACE. One burdens the doer with the impossible, the other lives out Jesus' glorious words, "...My yoke is easy, and My burden is light" Matthew 11:30. One deceives, the other delivers.

Note from this critical verse:

• We are GOD's WORKMANSHIP: The masterpiece we are becoming is God's work, not our own. We are works of GRACE, from start to finish. Our very purpose is to be a display of His handiwork. I have a friend who is an excellent craftsman and furniture maker. His workmanship draws nothing but admiration from me. But when I look at a cabinet he has made, I do not for a moment think that the cabinet made itself. The exquisite workmanship clearly and eloquently advertises the work of a MASTER CRAFTSMAN. "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven" Matthew 5:16. When someone understands the utter helplessness and hopelessness of humans apart from Christ, ALL GODLINESS of LIFE GLORIFIES GOD.
• God CREATED us in Christ Jesus: He did not reform or rebuild. When I was a little guy, my parents sent me and my siblings to Vacation Bible School for 2 weeks in the summer. During one VBS, the guys' big project was to build a birdhouse. For the life of me I could not nail a single nail in straight. By the end of the 2 weeks my birdhouse was hopeless. Problem: the final night we had a parent's night where they could view our projects. I was NOT looking forward to my dad seeing the mess that was supposed to be my birdhouse. Surely he would think some vandals had gotten ahold of it and beaten it to death with a crowbar. HOWEVER, when we arrived at my class, my birdhouse was...NORMAL! I was so proud...ah, RELIEVED! Seems that my compassionate leader had taken the thing apart that day and rebuilt it so that it would resemble a real birdhouse by the time my dad would lay eyes on it. GOD did NOT do this with us. We were MORE than messes. We were DEAD. There was no life in us to revive. There was no raw spiritual material in us to rearrange. God CREATED us in Christ Jesus. Created means he made out of nothing. Where there was NO life, He gave life. We were afterwards what we were not before. It was GOD's doing.
• God created us IN CHRIST JESUS: never tire of this phrase "in Christ Jesus." The life God gave us is Christ's life, through the Spirit. "...I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me" Galatians 2:20. We HAVE nothing, we ARE nothing APART from Christ. He is our life.

We'll pick up here tomorrow, the Lord willing. Let us live out what He has graciously created in us today so that those around us will ask, "Who's the CRAFTSMAN responsible for THIS work of art?"