Willing to Be Willing – Ephesians 2:1-10 (NIV)

Willing to Be Willing – Ephesians 2:1-10 (NIV)

"As for you" – wow, that sounds like a line from a movie when the principal has just commended the star student and then turns to the rebellious punk. He ended chapter 1 talking about how our great God raised up Christ, seated Him at His right hand and put all things under His dominion and made Him head of the church.

As for you, you yellah bellied, no-good, lily livered,… jk – but it is a stark contrast. Compared to Christ, our position was the worst. We were dead in sin doing what the world would tell us is good; following the spirit of the "ruler of the kingdom of the air." Such an interesting title for Satan.

Paul includes himself too "all of us" lived for our cravings and "by nature" deserved God’s wrath. We deserved it. "But God" (not a literal quote but that idea)… because of His great love for us. Why did He save us? Because of His great love for us. Wow.

In His rich mercy, while we were dead in our transgressions (not repentant, not sorry, not caring or wanting anything from Him) made us alive in Christ by grace. He also raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms. We are tied to Christ in His death and life.

Our only act here was to sin. Our role in this whole part was to be dead. God did it all in the work of Christ and, in His mercy, gave us grace and saved us through faith. We can only boast in our great God.

This is a comforting passage that removes anything about our salvation from us. Comforting because it means we never have to second guess if we did it right. Did we really pass the test? I did the thing but one part was a fluke so maybe I’m not saved. Nope, it was all Him. You just accept it.

And I love the explanation after: we are His handiwork. In Jesus, He created us to do good works. Our regeneration of life in Him was His work. And we now are meant to do "good works." Again, I don’t have to just try a bunch of stuff and hope that’s what He wanted. He prepared them in advance.

So what are they? Is there a list somewhere? I dunno. My human mind says "Ok, then I’ll just do whatever and I guess that’s what He prepared." Kinda. But even thinking that reminds me I have His Spirit in me now and I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to phone it in, do as little as possible, just get by. I want to shine the light on Him. I want to brag about how great He is.

But it is comforting that the "good works" are all set. They’re probably not what I expect. They’re not writing a book or becoming some great speaker. They’re loving my neighbor. Smiling at strangers. Who knows? I think my opportunity is to be willing as much as I can to be willing.