INTRODUCTION: This week, Time With God will continue to explore who we are in Christ. Our prayer is that you will grow in confidence and hope as we unpack biblical truth about who God has made us to be. Please note that there will be no Digging Deeper section.
GETTING STARTED
Workmanship is the art or product of a workman as a result of labor and skill. The creator reveals his or her design, and the quality of the work is on display, so that the world may behold the ingenuity of the artist and benefit from the creation. In today’s Scripture reading, God is the skillful artisan who created Christ followers. Those who accept his son have been created to do good things that benefit others, so that God and his grace are seen in our works.
- For what good works has God created you?
READ THE WORD: EPHESIANS 2:10 (ESV)
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
English Standard Version, copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
RESPOND TO GOD
I love visual arts and one of my favorite mediums is mosaic. A mosaic is a created image using an assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, metal, stone, or even trash. There is an acclaimed mosaic artist from San Francisco who uses the trash of celebrities, often stolen from their own garbage cans, to create iconic, and sometimes controversial, portraits. He used bacon to create a portrait of Kevin Bacon. Colorful, crushed eye shadow and tubes of lipstick produced a likeness of Mariah Carey. And painted pills were transformed into infamous images of Amy Winehouse and Whitney Houston. His work is appreciated for taking other people’s trash and creating beautiful displays of treasured art.
God considers us to be his workmanship. We are valuable and precious to him because we are his creation. We are so valuable to him that he gave his son, Jesus, to die on the cross for us, that we might become a new creation in Christ. Through salvation, Christ recreates our identity—where we were once worthless, sinful refuse, we are now an invaluable mosaic masterpiece, salvaged by God to do good works that bring him glory.
The beauty is in God’s workmanship and how he uses our broken past and trashy lives for good, to benefit others. Former habitual drug and alcohol abusers now give godly counsel to individuals battling the same addictions. Re-birthed adulterers and porn addicts now mentor premarital couples on how to God-proof their marriages. Women who struggled with self-worth and image issues are transformed into some of the best encouragers and teachers of God’s love and his Word—all because we have been recreated in Christ.
- Thank God for making you a masterpiece and giving you a new identity in Christ.
- Ask God to enable you to walk into the good works and purpose he has planned for you, for which you were created.