Encouragement: His great love

Here is your daily encouragement words and thoughts. Today I bring you encouragement from Ephesians 2:4-10

But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, 5 even though we were dead in transgressions, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you are saved! – 6 and he raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 to demonstrate in the coming ages the surpassing wealth of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 it is not from works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we may do them.

Biblical Studies Press. (2006; 2006). The NET Bible First Edition; Bible. English. NET Bible.; The NET Bible (Eph 2:4-10). Biblical Studies Press.

Because of his great love for us. Those are comforting words to hear. God loved us even though we were dead in our sin.
"By grace you have been saved." I used some of my fancy bible tools to have a look at the word that is translated saved here. In the Greek the word is in the perfect tense. Thus being "saved" here attends to both a completed action and a continuing result. In other words you have been saved and you are saved. I think that this is important to know because we are a work in progress. We will not be fully perfected until the lord takes us home.

Paul also really wants to drive home that grace is a gift from God and we have no part in the act of saving except to accept the gift. Paul adds that we are a result of God's workmanship. God does quality work. He made you and he has a plan for you. God did it in a way that makes sure that we can not claim or boast that we obtained the saved condition by our own account or on our own works.

So what about our works, do we not need to produce good works? Absolutely, we need to produce good works, but my good works and your good works are a result of having been saved. It is the spirit that now lives within us that brings forth the good works.

It is kind of cool that as part of God's plan, He intends to use us as his show piece, his hood ornament, to demonstrate in the coming ages the surpassing wealth of his grace that he has bestowed on us.

Thank God that we have a God that is rich in mercy and full of freely given grace that we may walk in the light and rest on the completed work of Jesus Christ

Amen

Music Encouragement The grace of God by michael w smith