God’s Handiwork

Today in our staff Bible Study we dug into a couple verses that never really hit me quite the way they did today. I’m gonna get to the verses here in a second but I want to ask something first. Have you ever been working on something, put a whole lot of time and effort into it, then got close to the finish and said, “Man, I didn’t quite hit the mark on this one.” Sheesh, I have a whole bunch of times! I think we can all relate to that in some way, shape or form. It’s kinda discouraging right? I mean, so much hard work, and then to be disappointed at the end? I don’t know about you, but it’s not my favorite feeling in the world.

For me it’s pieces of music. I’ll spend hours trying to flush out an idea, trying to put my heart and soul into it. Sometimes…sometimes it’s just not clicking. HECK, sometimes it feels like inauthentic art! So today we we’re digging into Ephesians 2:8-10, and a phrase popped out at me. “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God has prepared for us to do.” Wow, powerful right?! God’s handiwork, we’re that project that God worked on and then put into the world! There’s a pretty big difference though, God didn’t make any mistakes. That lead me to think, “Okay, God didn’t make any mistakes when he created his people, but man have I sure made a bunch of mistakes in my life.” Now I’m going somewhere with this, just follow me.

So okay, WE make mistakes, WE aren’t perfect, that’s a huge fact. That’s the reason why God sent his Son after all. All of this got me reading from the beginning of Ephesians 11. Verses 5-6, “made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. ⁶ And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.” We aren’t perfect, but God made us perfect in his eyes. Holy cow, that kind of puts it into perspective how much our father loves us huh? We fall short so many times, sometimes we feel like the project that didn’t quite live up to the expectations. You know what though? God takes each and every one of us and loves us, loves each and every flaw we have, picks us up after every transgression! Whole Love, perfect Love. All by grace, all by what Jesus did on the cross. With that he made us whole. With that he raised us up to be seated with him one day.

I guess what I’m trying to say in this whole thing, is that even though we aren’t perfect, even though we fail, we’re still God’s Handiwork. We’re still his children, he gives us never ending grace and love. He holds us close and carries us through hardships, and forgives us for our shortcomings. It’s not the perfection that does that, it’s not what we do that does that, it’s His love. It’s what Christ did for us on the cross. So even when you feel like you’ve failed, even when you feel you aren’t worthy of it (we’re not by the way, but that’s the beautiful thing about it), remember, we’re still God’s handiwork.

Joey Ennulat, Director of Worship Arts