This Week’s Theme is “An Intervening God” Today’s Scripture is from Ephesians 2:1-10
This is a prayer that I use in the mornings before spending time with God in His Word:
“For You alone, my soul waits hushed.” (and then I sit still, breathe a few deep breaths, and repeat that line until I am truly hushed and my soul is hungering for God alone.) “Please open my eyes, and ears, and heart, and mind, to really see and hear what You want to talk to me about today. I love You. I am excited to see what You have for me today. Amen.”
As I read this section, I am going to try to read it with eyes to see how God is INTERVENING!
Ephesians 2:1-10 (the Message)
“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, whenever we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. (Desperately needing Intervention!)
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 Intervened!)
He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. (He Intervened!)
He did all this on His own, with no help from us! (He Intervened!) Then He picked us up and set us down in the highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah. (He Intervened!) 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. (He continues to Intervene!)
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! (He continues to Intervene!)
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 continues to Intervene!)
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.
This Christmas Season, I am excited about the journey God has in store for us as we re-read the “big” stories in the Bible that show us how God has been Intervening in the lives of His people since time began! It will be fascinating to read passages of Scripture, like this week, with new eyes – eyes that are searching for more “intervention” kind of language. And I am so thankful, that in this world at war, you and I have a Victorious Savior Who daily intervenes for us. We no longer have to live in that “stagnant life of sin!” Hallelujah! What a Savior!
-dawn