Look Alive!

Ephesians 2:1-10

Most of us want to fondly remember the past. After all, they were the good old days! Nostalgia, however, can cloud our memory and we forget the painful parts. And, so, the greatness of the past continues to grow in our memory.

But Paul remembers it differently. “You were dead in your transgressions and sins,” he wrote. The good old days were not good because we were disobedient. Instead of a Christian walk, we walked in the ways of the world. It was a death march. We were the walking dead. Rather than being children of God, we were children of wrath on the road to judgment. (Eph 2:2-3)

That’s all in the past. Paul says that God made us alive in Christ. All because of God’s mercy and his great, unmerited love for us. We have done nothing to earn our salvation. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Eph 2:8-9)

Paul tells us that we are saved for a purpose. “We are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works,” he writes. (Eph 2:10)

The prophet Isaiah tells us about good works. “Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.” (Is 1:17)

The prophet Micah also provides us with some insight. “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Mic 6:8)

In the past, we walked in sin; today we walk in the light. In the past we were dead in sin, today we are alive in Christ. By God’s grace, today we are ready to do the good works God prepared in advance for us.