October 24
“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance as our way of life.” (Ephesians 2:10)
A few days ago we began to talk about the fact that much of the New Testament is written to help us understand: what we WERE (before Jesus) vs. what we ARE now (because of Jesus). For all those who have truly embraced Jesus, as Savior and Lord: “The old things have passed away; behold, the new has come into being.” (2Cor. 5:17b)
This is God’s doing. There is nothing that we can do to earn what God has done. We are simply required to receive the free gift that is offered to us.
And what a gift it is!
Before Jesus, we WERE self-centered sinners – destined for eternal separation from God. But, upon receiving Jesus (and what He did on our behalf) our status with God changed… immediately! We went from being sinners… to being saints. We went from being unrighteous… to righteous. Utterly guilty… to blameless. Contemptible… to justified. All because we placed our trust in what Jesus did for us.
We ARE the results of God’s handiwork – not the process of His work. We are not becoming new creations – we ARE new creations. Because of this fact, we have new views on life, new motives, new principles, new objectives for our lives, new purposes, and we live for new ends.
This is our new life – and our new way of living.
Everything that God did for us, through Jesus, was to make it possible for us to live this new life from day one. How??
Because we have been “created in Christ Jesus.”
As we mentioned a couple of days ago, we are God’s creative work. A perfect work. An immediate work. We WERE dead in our sins (Eph. 2:1), but God spoke the word of our personal resurrection… and we came alive. But all this creative work was not so we could live our lives any way we wanted to live (just less guilty of sin). We are “created in Christ Jesus” so that Jesus can live and work in, and through, our lives.
The whole objective of faith in Christ is so that Christ can show Himself real and faithful to our generation. That’s right. Christianity is meant to bring Christ to life in every generation of souls – until He returns.
This can only happen because the living Christ is doing what only Jesus can do, through our individual lives. Everywhere we go, Christ not only goes with us – He is meant to be the One they see through us. This is certainly confirmed by the Apostle Paul: “For God is the One working in you both to will and to work according to His good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13)
We were not created as new creations in a vacuum… we are created as new creations IN Christ Jesus. He is our life. He is our passion. He is our purpose. He is our everything.
And in us, He lives to do the things that we saw Him do in the pages of the gospels.
I cannot think of a life more meaningful than that.
Prayer Focus: Each day, Lord, make me aware that I am not what I was, I am created IN Christ Jesus to BE new — so that You can live through me.
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