Ephesians 2:4–7

January 30, 2010 in Ephesians with 0 Comments

4 But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, 5 that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!) 6 For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heav­enly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus. 7 So God can point to us in all future ages as exam­ples of the incred­i­ble wealth of his grace and kind­ness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus.

Now You’re Alive

Yes­ter­day, we talked about the fact that so many peo­ple have no idea that they are spir­i­tu­ally dead. They con­tin­u­ally strive to find mean­ing and pur­pose in life, but because they have not turned to Christ, they remain frus­trated and lost.

Those who do grab ahold of the gift of grace are in the very oppo­site posi­tion. Rather than death, they find them­selves spir­i­tu­ally alive. As Jesus put it, we’re abun­dantly alive.

And yet, I won­der if those who are alive are any more aware of their state than those who are dead spir­i­tu­ally. I meet many who have turned their life over to Christ, and yet func­tion as if they are in no bet­ter a place than any­one else. They com­plain, strug­gle, and find them­selves just as dis­cour­aged as those who don’t know Christ. In many ways, there seems to be lit­tle, if any difference.

Why is that?

I’m glad you asked. I believe it’s because it takes faith to step out and live the life that we have been called to live. It’s takes faith to truly believe that Christ has made a dif­fer­ence in your life. We’ve been talk­ing about that all month at Bik­ers’ Church (you can watch the videos here). Extreme faith is when you take the truth of Scrip­ture and actu­ally live it out in your life.

So, what are you wait­ing for? You’re alive. Start liv­ing that way.

My prayer: Lord, you gift of sal­va­tion means I am no longer dead spir­i­tu­ally. You have brought me back to live. You invite me to live a life that is beyond any­thing I could do with­out you. I want to live a life that ful­fills your call­ing for me. Help me to see how that is pos­si­ble. Amen.

Until tomor­row.