Daily Reading: 9-23-16
Ephesians 2:1-10 The Message (MSG)
God is a Father who desires to share his perfect love with all of his creation. It appears when we do not know how much God loves us we will expect humans to make us feel worthy and valuable. And, if humans don’t rise to the occasion the way we expect, then we generalize things and assume “no one” cares. It’s just not true. God cares and many people who have experienced God’s love also care.
The real issue is that we have sought to gain our worth and value out of human flesh that has its own war with sin. In time, people will let other people down. It may not be a deliberate thing; it’s simply a human thing. God, on the other hand, not only values us He has made a way to enjoy fellowship with us on a perfect performance level. He never disappoints. He takes our messed up thinking and living then guides us into a plan for us to prosper; a plan only we can fulfill. If people do not seek God, they will never know how special they are nor what amazing things they could do in the power of God’s grace.
Ephesians 2:1-10
He Tore Down the Wall
2 1-6 It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.
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.
Prayer: Father God, thank you for reaching out to me, loving me, affirming my value to you, and for creating a place in the world only I can fulfill. You make me feel special. I pray every human being will one day experience the same with you. In Jesus’ name. Amen.