EXPAND TO READ: EPHESIANS 2 (HCSB)
PERSONAL JOURNAL:
SIN (verse 10): You tell us that we are His creation, created in Christ Jesus for good works which You prepared ahead of time for us so that we should walk in them. Since coming to faith, I have struggled with truly seeing and living in the path You have prepared for me, Father. I have struggled to live in a way of good works in my life as You want me to. Please forgive me for my selfishness and my worldly struggle of holding onto my old self. Please continue to remind me that I am a new creation in Christ and that this new me is built for good works, not the works of my old self. Help me to continue to be better at seeing and living in Your vision and Your plan for my life, Father.
PROMISE (verses 6-7): In these two verses, You make us one promise that I’m quite familiar with, but a second promise that I don’t think I’ve ever truly realized until today. The first promise is that You’ve have raised us up through Jesus so that He might display the immeasurable riches of Your grace. Your grace is a well-known promise to me that I am very grateful for. The second promise in these verses is one that I don’t believe I’ve ever truly read or understood in this way and it is concerning Your kindness. You say that Jesus Christ is an expression of Your kindness to us. How powerful is this? Not only do You shower us with immeasurable grace, but You have also sacrificed for us Your perfect Son because of Your powerful kindness towards us. We are already undeserving of Your grace, yet You’ve freely given it to us. At the same time, we’re undeserving of Your kindness due to how mean we were towards Your perfect Son and still are even today to an extent, yet Your powerful kindness reigns supreme through all of that as You willingly gave us Jesus as our pathway into Your Kingdom. Thank You, Father!
ATTITUDE (verses 19-20): I have struggled quite a bit in my life with embracing an attitude that is built on a solid foundation. In these verses, You tell us that our solid foundation is based on the apostles and the prophets, but that Jesus Christ Himself is our cornerstone. My foundation is riddled with imperfections, faults, and weak spots due to my own negligence and my own selfishness. Help me to embrace an attitude that realizes and lives in the fact that Your word, Your truth, and Your Son are the perfect foundation for my life through ALL things. Continue to work in me to repair and/or replace the broken parts of my foundation with Your perfect parts, Father. I know I am not perfect and my foundation has issues that I often default back to, but I also know that through You I can live on a perfect foundation to glorify You through all that I am and all that I do.
COMMAND (verse 10): I’m going back to this verse because I do feel it is an important piece of the spiritual “puzzle” in a sense. You tell us that we ARE His creation, that we ARE created in Christ Jesus, that we ARE created for good works and that those good works ARE prepared ahead of time by You, Father! How can one read this verse and not see these as commands for how we are to be living? We are Your creation, but we are also a new creation through Jesus. At the same time, we are created for doing good works in this life, not living selfishly for our own pleasures. I have lived a life for a long time for my own pleasure and it is never truly satisfying. When I live for You, however, I truly feel blessed by the works I am doing for Your kingdom, so thank You for this clear pathway and command for how to live my life, Father, even though I do often struggle and give into my flesh.
EXAMPLE (verses 13-16): These verses are such a powerful example to the purpose behind the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for us. He wasn’t a sacrifice solely for our eternal salvation and atonement. He was also a sacrifice for the church as a whole to be peacemaker and wall breaker between the different bodies of the church and different peoples of God. Unfortunately, I have been witness to a LOT of supposed followers of Christ having much hostility towards other fellow believers. This is obviously not what Jesus wanted, what You wanted, nor what His sacrifice was meant for based on these verses. We as a church body must be better at putting the hostility to rest and coming together as one body under Christ Jesus in a peaceful, joyful, and celebratory way that praises and glorifies Your kingdom through all that we are and do in this life.
*DAILY NOTE: This was a rather tough read for me at times, Father. You speak about my identity in Christ, about the purpose of Christ’s sacrifice, and even about the turmoil we often see even today between the believers of Christ. Why do we often struggle with all of these topics in our faith walk, Father? Is it due to our own selfishness or brokenness? Is it due to the deceptive nature of the enemy that feeds us what our flesh wants to hear, essentially giving our flesh more power over our thought-life? Help me to be a better follower, Father, so that I can truly embrace this new identity You’ve given me, but also so that I may be a better believer of Christ as You expect of me, so that the fully body of Christ may be blessed by You through me.
EXPAND TO READ: GENERAL NOTE FOR MY QUIET TIMES
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