Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in a video of Crystal Lewis and Ron Kenoly singing Beauty For Ashes, God’s promise of beauty in Christ for the ashes of our humanity … the promise for ANYONE who receives God’s saving grace by faith in Christ.
Highlight Passage Ephesians 2: 10 [ESV] …
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
… As God’s re-shaped workers, all our works should be for His glory.
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Highlight Context - Ephesians 2: 8-22 [ESV] … USE THIS LINK …
… Paul declares that anyone, Jew or Gentile, who is saved through God’s grace by faith becomes God’s workmanship
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Reference Passage #1 - Genesis 17: 9-14 [ESV] … USE THIS LINK ...
… God’s covenant with Abraham made it hard for Jews to accept the New Covenant through Christ to accept the Gentiles into God’s kingdom as well as the Jews.
Reference Passage #2 - John 3: 16-17 [ESV] …
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that WHOEVER believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
… Jesus Himself declared that “WHOSOEVER” believes in Him as Lord and Savior would be saved - Jew or Gentile!!!
Reference Passage #3 - 2nd Corinthians 5: 17 [ESV] …
17 Therefore, if ANYONE is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
… Paul declares that “ANYONE” can become new in Christ … and that meant Gentiles as well as Jews.
Reference Passage #4 - Ephesians 3: 6 [ESV] …
6 This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
… To many Jews the truth that Gentiles could be grafted into God’s family was a hard pill to swallow.
Reference Passage #5 - Philippians 1: 6 [ESV] …
6 And I am sure of this, that He, Who began a good work in you, will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
… And this is God’s promise to ANYONE!
My Journal for Today: Today’s Our Daily Bread author, Tim Gustafson, in his ODB teaching, uses a word picture of the reality that a beautiful log-home can be built from roughly hewn logs; and that’s what much of New Covenant Christianity was all about, … that God would come to mankind, Jews AND Gentiles alike, and give them ALL the promise of eternal life through God’s grace … when ANYONE would repent of their sinfulness and receive The Christ as their Lord and Savior.
But the Jewish believers of those times had trouble accepting that truth … that Gentiles could become God’s workmanship and be reshaped into God’s images just as Jehovah God had promised to the Jews in the Old Covenant made to Abraham (see Genesis 17: 9-14). But then in the 1st Century, after the resurrection of Christ and His promised return, Jewish Christians had trouble accepting Jesus’ New Covenant promises to the Gentiles as well as the Jews. And Paul, especially, had to preach this truth over and over as he was called to preach the Gospel in his travels in the known world of that day (see the highlight passage from Ephesians 2 above as Paul preached to Gentiles).
Fellow Christian, I pray; … we all realize, and accept, that ANYONE - me or you - can become a new creation in Christ (see 2nd Cor. 5: 17); and ANYONE can become God’s workmanship to glorify Him with all we think, say, and do (see Ephesian 2: 10); and that God has promised ANYONE that He will, in His time and fashion, reshape ANYONE into the image of our Lord when He comes again [see Philippians 1: 6], and finally, we ALL know that we can be His workmanship … yes, even today!
So, let’s be part of God’s ANYONE family and go forth today to glorify Him with our workmanship in Christ.
My Prayer Today: Oh Lord, … I am so grateful that You came to save this ANYONE; and You’ve given me Your Spirit and power to glorify You by my works. So, dear God, help me do just that today, Amen
Blogger Note: Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online devotional blog entitled Our Daily Bread, distributed online via email by RBC Ministries. If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you can read/study the ODB blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.
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