Ephesians 2

Ephesians 2 (The Message)
1-6It 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, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. 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 took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.
7-10Now 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. 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! 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 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.
11-13But don’t take any of this for granted. It was only yesterday that you outsiders to God’s ways had no idea of any of this, didn’t know the first thing about the way God works, hadn’t the faintest idea of Christ. You knew nothing of that rich history of God’s covenants and promises in Israel, hadn’t a clue about what God was doing in the world at large. Now because of Christ—dying that death, shedding that blood—you who were once out of it altogether are in on everything.
14-15The Messiah has made things up between us so that we’re now together on this, both non-Jewish outsiders and Jewish insiders. He tore down the wall we used to keep each other at a distance. He repealed the law code that had become so clogged with fine print and footnotes that it hindered more than it helped. Then he started over. Instead of continuing with two groups of people separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion, he created a new kind of human being, a fresh start for everybody.
16-18Christ brought us together through his death on the cross. The Cross got us to embrace, and that was the end of the hostility. Christ came and preached peace to you outsiders and peace to us insiders. He treated us as equals, and so made us equals. Through him we both share the same Spirit and have equal access to the Father.
19-22That’s plain enough, isn’t it? You’re no longer wandering exiles. This kingdom of faith is now your home country. You’re no longer strangers or outsiders. You belong here, with as much right to the name Christian as anyone. God is building a home. He’s using us all—irrespective of how we got here—in what he is building. He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation. Now he’s using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together. We see it taking shape day after day—a holy temple built by God, all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home.

Devotional
God’s mercy and grace! Wow! In the midst of our struggle with sin, with our doing what we want to do, when we want to do it, God doesn’t give us what we deserve. He doesn’t lose his temper and get angry with us. That’s mercy! Instead, He gives us what we don’t deserve. He takes our lives, that feel so empty and dead because of sin, and He fills us up with His love, giving us new life. That’s grace!
Even though I’ve been a follower of Christ for a long time, I have struggled with this issue. For a variety of reasons, I have often felt like God was watching me in order to catch me doing something wrong, that He was angry with me. Because of that, I’ve tried really hard in my own efforts to be good in order to be worthy of God’s love. But that’s not what this passage says. Rather, it says that all we have to do it trust him enough to let him do it. He wants to shower us with his incredible love. The NIV versions states verses 8 and 9 this way. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.” I can never be good enough to earn God’s love, it truly is a gift. When I try in my own efforts, I wear myself out. How about you? Do you ever struggle with trying to earn God’s love? Rest in the assurance that He loves you – because of who He is and what He has done. Not because of anything you have done. Feel His loving embrace even now.

Prayer:
Heavenly Father, you know that I sometimes struggle with trying to earn your love. I have worn myself out trying. Help me to rest assured in your grace and your mercy. That your amazing love, as evidenced by Jesus’ death for me, is all about who YOU are. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I can never say thank you enough for an amazing love that I really don’t understand and certainly don’t deserve, but I accept it as your gift to me.
Amen.