For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
We have been created anew in Christ Jesus to do good things. Other translations say “good works.”
When being encouraged to do good works, some people answer by quoting Ephesians 2:8-9. (KJV For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.) Yes, we are saved by grace, through faith and not by our works; salvation is a gift. Now, if those who quote verses 8 and 9 would only continue to verse 10, they would see why God gave us the gift— “to do the good things he planned for us long ago”. God doesn’t give useless gifts; He gives gifts with a purpose. Knowing this, we realize we are responsible to find out what His plans for us are and to follow through and do what He expects us to do. As Ephesians 5:17 puts it, “Don’t act thoughtlessly, but try to understand what the Lord wants you to do.”
God prepared these works in advance, expecting us to do them. How much clearer can it get? God had a plan in mind, works lined out for each one of us, even before we accepted His gift of salvation. Now it’s our turn. Now it’s time for us to learn what those works are, pull ourselves together, and go get them done.
This is not merely something we can do; it is something we must do if we are to be pleasing to Him. After all, His Word says repeatedly that faith without works is dead. (James 2:17, 20, 26; KJV; Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead… But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?… For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.) Too, without faith it is impossible to please God. (Hebrews 11:6, KJV, But without faith it is impossible to please Him…)
Under his direction, the whole body is fitted together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.
Under his direction
These first three words are the key. We must submit to Him as part of His body, completely under His direction. If we won’t be under HIS direction, totally submitted to HIM, why do we call ourselves Christians? To be called a Christian is to be called Christ Like, and Jesus Christ was so completely submitted to His heavenly father that He willingly took the unimaginably horrendous path to the cross.
So, as we are under His direction…
the whole body
The whole body, every part of it, is “fitted together perfectly.”
is fitted together
“is fitted”
This phrase is in the passive voice, which shows that it isn’t the body that is doing the fitting together. The “fitting together” is being done to the body by God. (I Corinthians 12:18, KJV But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased Him.)
When we are under His direction, allowing Him to fit us together—letting Him put us where He wants us instead of insisting on putting ourselves where we want to be—we will be fitted together perfectly.
as each part does
Every part of the body has work to do. If a part of the human body refuses to work, the whole body suffers. The same is true of Christ’s body. We are not just here to be. We are here to do. (Ephesians 2:10, KJV, For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.)
its own special work
God gives each of us work to do and we can either do that work or not do it. If we choose to do our work, we are free to choose whether to do it well or poorly. If we choose not to do our work, we are free to choose whether to do nothing or to do someone else’s work instead.
We’ve a world of choices and only one is acceptable—to do that special work that God has set aside specifically for us. To do anything else is to fail Him, the body, and ourselves.
This even holds true when we decide to do ‘extra’ work. While being faithful to our own special work, we might still have enough time that we choose to go help another part of the body as well. This can be a wonderful thing, but if we move against His direction, stepping out on our own accord, the whole body will suffer.
This is not to say a man cannot be active in more than one ministry. If God directs him to serve in multiple areas, God will also orchestrate his service. If, however, he chooses to serve in multiple ministries against God’s direction, he is asking for trouble to visit not only him, but every ministry he touches.
We each have our own special work to do and He expects us to do it and do it with excellence!
it helps the other parts grow
What a gift! Can anything greater be said of a man than that he helps others grow? No. Here is a promise, a result, worth working toward!
And, to consider this from the other side, if this member of Christ’s body chooses not to be under His direction, not to fit in his assigned spot perfectly, not to do the special work God has assigned specifically to him, then he will inevitably hinder the other parts in their growth.
How much better it is to do what we know to do and do it in the way God intends!
so that the whole body is healthy
This is one third of what should be our goal, and is God’s goal, for the body of Christ—that we as the body be healthy and growing and full of love.
Unfortunately, though many individual churches are healthy, this cannot be said of the church as a whole, at least not here in the United States. Many churches have experienced splits and too often church members are not surprised when they learn of other members’ immorality. One can also find church buildings for sale in this nation that are available for purchase not because the churches have grown too large for them, but rather because they’ve died.
and growing
Obviously, if the church as a whole is not healthy, it is also not growing. I was somewhat surprised at one point, though I wasn’t too very shocked, to hear my pastor say in a sermon that the church in the U.S. has not grown since the 1970s. If this is true, something is obviously wrong.
and full of love
This, perhaps, is the saddest thing of all. God is love; you would think that His church would necessarily be full of love, but in how many churches will you find no gossip, no murmuring, no backbiting, no complaining… If a church is truly full of love, there is no room for these things.
So we, the body, fail the test. We are not fitted together perfectly, with each part doing its own special work. Why?
Because too many of us have never learned the difference between being a volunteer and being a called out, chosen one—the difference between one who casually offers, “I’ll do it,” knowing he has the option of quitting later, and the one who answers the call of his Lord, fully prepared to do anything and everything he is told to do. If the church is to be healthy, to grow and to be full of love, we as individuals must grow up first, moving beyond “I’m only a volunteer!” and into “I am a called out child of God who will fulfill my destiny!”
Jesus often used illustrations a gardener could easily understand. In looking at volunteers it seems particularly appropriate to follow His example. So let’s imagine the life of a certain volunteer plant.
There was once a volunteer plant. Like all volunteer plants, it popped up in an unexpected location. Some animal carried a seed into a side yard and dropped it, and there it grew. When the gardener found it, he had to make some decisions.
Should he move it to the garden where it could grow as he’d intended and receive all the right care? No, the plant had set its roots firmly right where it was; it would not be shifted to a more appropriate location.
Would it be best for him to cut this plant down so that it would not hinder the growth of the plants he had selected specifically for this area? He did not like this idea at all, for it was a nice enough plant and there was some hope that it would bear decent fruit even here, where it wasn’t supposed to be.
So the gardener chose not to cut it down, but to watch and ensure that it did not too greatly hinder the growth of the plants around it. If it proved too much of a danger, if the fruit it might one day produce seemed not to be enough to outweigh the damage it could cause, he would remove it.
So it remained where it had planted itself, though the gardener was never fully happy and kept a cautious eye on it always. He watched as it grew. He watched as it flowered. He watched as it produced fruit. He watched as it died.
The gardener had managed to minimize the damage this volunteer plant did to its companions. He had also harvested the fruit it produced, though this fruit was disappointing when compared to the fruit of similar plants that flourished in the other part of his garden. The gardener was sad as he disposed of its dead remains and considered what this plant could have been, what fruit it would have produced and how much better off both sections of his yard would have been, if it had only put its roots down where it belonged.
The gardener, of course, is God. The volunteer plant is the Christian who is a mere volunteer, one who does not understand the call of God, one who chooses where he will go and how he will serve instead of letting God plant him in the proper spot and serving as God calls him.
A mere volunteer goes where he wishes to go, offers only such assistance as he is inclined to offer, and remains only as long as he wants to stay. He may choose to plant himself in the very place God would have put him, but if his heart is not right or if his chosen place of service is not what God has planned for him, there will be problems. He may be of some benefit in this area where he chooses to plant himself, but he will never be all God wants him to be.
The Christian who plants himself in a location other than the one God has chosen for him will have, and cause, special problems because he is not where God wants him to be—in that place set aside for him where he can do the special work God has already prepared for him to do. (Ephesians 4:16, KJV, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.) He cannot help this alternate location as well as one who is called to it, and it is entirely possible that his presence will eventually prove harmful—to himself, to those around him, perhaps to both. He may manage to live the entirety of his days in this one, wrong spot and he may be happy, but he will never be fulfilled because he will never become all God has ordained him to be. Worse, the body will never be all it is supposed to be, because he is out of place.
When you consider plants, there is really only one difference between a volunteer plant and a weed. The volunteer plant is a cultured plant, one that is designed to serve a purpose. God obviously doesn’t want weeds in His garden. He also doesn’t want His cultivated plants putting their roots down in places not of His choosing.
A volunteer, according to the dictionary, is one who enters into an activity of his own free will. A mere volunteer not only enters of his own free will, but retains the right to free will, the right to say, “You can’t expect me to do that; I’m only a volunteer!” He will work only as hard as he pleases, do only the jobs he chooses to do and stay only as long as it suits him. He persists in thinking that it’s all about him, when in reality it’s all about HIM.
Way back in my AOL days, a lady once emailed me asking if I would be willing to be her mentor as a Christian. I was honored, obviously, but also somewhat unprepared since I’d never been asked that question before. Not knowing what else to do, I answered honestly that I would count it an honor, but the very best advice I could give anyone is to truly accept Jesus as their Savior and LORD – giving Him full control of their life.
Her reply made me sad. She said she wasn’t ready to let anyone else be in control of her life, that she wanted to continue controlling it herself. Looking back, I realize I understand a tiny bit of what Jesus must have felt when talking to the rich young ruler.
We toss the phrase “Lord and Savior” around like it’s nothing, but in fact it is everything – and in my opinion we say the words out of order. First, we accept Jesus as Savior. Until we’ve done that, acknowledging that He has literally purchased us from our slaveholder (sin), we cannot submit to and serve Him as Lord. It’s simply not possible.
But then, to know Him as Lord, we must understand what a Lord is. Modern day life doesn’t help us in this area; we have to look back. In past times your Lord was, quite literally, your ruler. His word was supreme in your life and you owed pretty much everything to him. You owed him all loyalty, all fealty, and a certain percentage of everything you produced on the land he provided for you. Yes, he told you what to do and you did it…or else.
But here is the part most people don’t grasp. He also, if he was a good Lord, took responsibility for you, took care of you. In telling you what to do, he was looking ahead, figuring out what it would take for you to prosper, and setting you up for that prosperity. He understood that for his realm to do well you had to do well, and he did all he could to ensure you did – if he was a good lord, which our Lord obviously is.
My life became EASIER when I moved past merely accepting Jesus as my Savior and into submitting to Him as my Lord. It’s all on Him now. He’s the one responsible for telling me which direction to take; all I have to do is listen and obey. Proverbs 3:5-6 is one of my favorite Scriptures: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” There it is in a nutshell.
I readily admit that I’m a recovering control freak. Those who have fought this battle know what I’m saying when I confess that learning to let God have control was HARD, and I still don’t get it right anywhere near often enough. Even so, it is literally the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done and, though I’d not lie and say life has been easy ever since, I can honestly say I have MORE freedom, MORE joy, and MORE peace than I ever had while trying to run things myself.
What about the lady who emailed me on AOL? Well, I did hear from her again a year or so later, and she seemed an entirely different person. She wanted me to know that she had finally accepted Jesus as her Lord… and had discovered the true freedom and peace I’d promised.
I know what it is to hear God’s voice; we’ve had that kind of relationship for decades. Even so, since I began working with a new prayer journal last December, my relationship with Him and my experience with hearing His voice have been revolutionized.
This journal has a section specifically set aside for listening to Him. Every day, when I come to that section, I literally shut up and take dictation. That first day it felt slightly awkward, but it wasn’t long before I was sitting there in awe, writing as fast as I could while trying to process what He was saying. The experience was, and still is, AMAZING.
It’s not possible to entirely “get” what He’s saying as He speaks it, of course, so I then go back and read what I’ve written and talk to Him about what He’s said. He has opened my eyes to astounding things this way, and in letting Him talk freely (instead of me interrupting Him) I find that we get on topics I’d never have dreamed of. He tells me things that blow my mind, give me instruction, encourage me…
One advantage of this method is that I have what He’s said written down and can go back to refer to it at any time I wish…or any time He tells me to. This morning was one of those times, and while reading I came across one section I wanted to share with you. He was talking about the close relationship I have with Him where, among other things, He tells me secrets just like a best friend would.
This is what life should have been all along, the relationship I desire with everyone. You are no more special than anyone else. You have merely developed the art of listening and learned to trust your ability to hear.
Trusting myself to hear has been a big deal – meaning a big challenge. God and I have conversations throughout the day, and sometimes when I ask Him questions His answers surprise me. At those points, I’ll pause and ask, “Was that You or was that me?” I can almost hear Him chuckle as He answers, “That was Me.” So my faith in my own ability to hear has been growing.
But still, the first key to the truly tight relationship we should all desire to have with God (or anyone else) is in the first part of that last sentence. Develop the art of listening.
I have desired this type of relationship for most of my life. Who’d have thought that it would start with something so simple as me learning how to shut up and listen?
Well… you probably figured it out a long time ago. Sometimes I can be a bit slow.
Today is the National Day of Prayer, and as I was praying this morning, while I was asking God to start a revolution, to send revival, He said, “It’s little things that start a revolution. It’s little things that start a revival.”
We keep asking God to send revival, too often failing to understand that revival starts HERE, with us, and it starts small. It begins with one man deciding to spend five more minutes a day in prayer. It starts with a young woman asking of God, every morning, “Help me be a blessing to someone today.” It starts with me using the amazingly simple new witnessing tool He’s given me.
Revival, a revolution of our walk with God, may well sweep in on us like a flood, but it’s the little things – each of us doing our share of little things – that will trigger it.
Consider a dam. It holds back massive amounts of water, but if you poke enough little holes in it the water will eventually burst forth and flooding is inevitable. Let us poke those holes. Let each of us seek God for those little things He would have us do. Who knows? It may be your little thing that is exactly what is needed to put the final hole in the dam.
For those who wonder how I can possible serve a God I cannot see, this is how. Yes, when I accepted Jesus as my Savior, I did it in faith. I did it because what the minister said made sense, and I liked what I saw in the lives of those I knew served Him.
As I made Him Lord of my life, committing time to get to know Him, we began to build a genuine relationship. This relationship that you can’t see is why I continue to serve Him after all these years.
I explained once, to a friend, that I had never seen her father, had no proof of his existence beyond what she had told me of their relationship. Based on what I could not see, I had the option of choosing to believe he did not exist. I chose to believe he did, because I trusted my friend and believed what she told me about their relationship.
How can you have a relationship with someone you can’t touch and feel? People do it all the time over the Internet. For decades, we’ve been developing relationships with people we may or may not ever meet in person. Sometimes we even feel closer to those distant friends than we do to the ones in our “real lives.”
My relationship with God is like that. I am closer to Him than anyone around me. He’s inside me, knows me better than I know myself. Have I ever seen him? Well, I’ve actually had two visions of Jesus, so yes…but even if I had not it would make no difference, because seeing isn’t necessary to relationship. Feeling isn’t necessary to relationship. Only knowing is necessary to relationship and oh, yes, I do know Him.
Yes, we in Christian culture know it as Good Friday, and it is a VERY Good Friday. A few years back, however, I grew hungry for more knowledge of the Jewish Jesus. I had a desire to understand where Jesus and His disciples were coming from, so I began researching more about what it meant to be a Jew. As I learned, Good Friday became even more awesome than before.
Passover isn’t just a celebration of God delivering the children of Israel out of Egypt. It is so much more, and what happens during this feast lies not only at the roots of Jewish culture but that of Christianity as well. The Jews flocked to Jerusalem with their required sacrifices, those spotless lambs they had been keeping carefully for this, The Lord’s Feast. This was no mere offering up of the life of a perfect lamb to them; it was spiritual life and death. Only if they brought an acceptable sacrifice would their sins be covered for the following year – and only for the year.
Think on that a moment. They put forth a massive amount of effort to fulfill their responsibility in this. Whether they counted it labor or honor, it was WORK to preserve a spotless lamb and bring it to the Temple, to wait their turn to actually make their offering in the midst of a chaotic symphony of bleating and talking and prayers and…and the shedding of so much blood. They did all of this trusting God to cover their sins for a single year, planning to return the following year to do the same.
There is much more to Passover, but this is the point to which I wished to bring us. On THAT Passover, THE Perfect Lamb offered Himself up instead. From that moment on, these annual sacrifices became unnecessary because His blood didn’t simply cover our sins for a single year; rather, it washed them away forever.
I recently had occasion to remember a discussion I heard years ago between two friends. We were all in the same ministry and one told the other, in reference to that ministry, something along the lines of, “But we’re different. We have a call on our lives and this is just a stepping stone to something bigger.” I was appalled. I didn’t respond, because I was so much in shock at her audacity, but even though I was fairly young at the time I knew enough about God to know He doesn’t work that way. He doesn’t deal in stepping stones.
I’m still stymied when I consider that any Christian would think that way. I mean… When using a stepping stone, what is your mindset? It’s to get OFF. If you think of any ministry as being nothing more than a stepping stone, you’re going in at least somewhat with the attitude that the ministry itself doesn’t matter other than in its service to you, and you don’t plan to be there long. That attitude is so completely unscriptural that I can’t even fathom a Christian having it. I know many do; it’s just beyond me.
I don’t choose the ministries in which I serve; I let God choose for me. He knows exactly what I am now and what He wants me to become. He plants me where I need to be to grow into that person, and He plants me where I can prove most effective for His Kingdom – all of which may or may not have anything to do with what I want to do. Someone once expressed to me the idea that he had a specific call on his life and it didn’t make sense to serve in any area that wouldn’t further that call – yes, I did speak up that time, because I’ve learned through experience just how erroneous that thinking is…and how dangerous.
The person who made the original “stepping stone” reference? If she ever did move on to the bigger and better things she was anticipating, I don’t know about it. I can’t help but wonder if her attitude was part of the reason why.
REFLECT
To show an image of the One who is looked at. Let the Refiner see His face in you just as the silver refiner can see his face in the pure silver. This only happens when your heart is pure.
INSIGHT
Insight comes from reflection, from studying the reflection. How accurately do I reflect Him? Where am I a little (or a lot) off?
GLORY
Glory comes only in His presence. We can be mirrors reflecting His glory out into the world just as mirrors have been used to send messages from place to place through history. Everything we need and desire is found in His glorious presence. Let us stay there.
HOLY SPIRIT HELP
We must have the Holy Spirit’s help in all things. Without God we are nothing, and without Him we can achieve nothing of eternal value. We must humble ourselves, seek His help, and follow His instructions.
THINK
When He speaks to us, be it through the Word, a minister, a friend, or directly to our spirits, we must not simply hear what He says; we must also think about it, meditate on it, and chew on it. Only then will it truly change us, making us more like Him.
