Ephesians 2:7-10
Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.
Scripture quotations from The Message. © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress, Colorado Springs, CO. All rights reserved.
There is a running joke in our family that Timothy is just a little compulsive. His bath tub “friends” must all face a certain direction, and “everyone knows that dinosaurs and zoo animals do not mix together on the window [sill]”! He gets things just like he likes them…and trust me…it has to be HIS idea how everything will go from there! He is big on “I’ll do it myself!” I’ll be honest… most of the time in between Timothy’s visits to our house, his toys are left exactly where he placed them. They remind me of him and how hard he “worked” to get them just right when he was here.
Have you thought about how hard God worked to create you and get you to where you are today? Have you considered all of the planning and preparation that went into designing you and your life… all of the actual “work” that was involved in making you the person you are and developing your potential for the future? Did you know that God even has plans for your Eternity in heaven…purposes and goals for what you will accomplish there for Him?
Trust me…you won’t mind performing your “heavenly assignments”. But I am afraid more than a few of us resent doing God’s work on this earth…or at least we act like we do. We appear to be anything BUT eager to serve Him…to seek His will…to stay in communication with Him. We’re like the teenager or college-aged student who doesn’t answer Mom or Dad’s phone calls or texts. We figure if they can’t reach us, we can say we didn’t get their message…that we had no clue they wanted us to do something. We didn’t know that they expected us to come for dinner, pick up a sibling from school, or help Grandma with some yard work. We were not aware that they were counting on us to do well in school and provide frequent reports…or to be a responsible citizen/employee/friend/child. We didn’t get the “memo”.
Do you see that this really makes no sense? Do you understand that everything we have…everything we are and ever will be is because of God – not ourselves? Don’t you want to enjoy everything He designed and planned for you? Do you get it that your attempts to do things your way often sabotage God’s plans to make everything “just right” for you…lined up perfectly and in the exact combinations that are spot-on? Isn’t it time you dropped the arrogance and bravado and allowed God to create perfection within you...His way…on His terms? Don’t you know that His way will always be better than ours?
Are you ready to go full in with God…to let go of your own will in order to embrace His? Will this be the week that you begin?
©2014 Debbie Robus
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