PURPOSED FOR GOOD WORKS

"For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them."
Ephesians 2:10 ESV

God has ordained to work out His plans and purposes for each generation through men and women like you and me. He is the determiner of history who prepares the person for his hour and the hour for the person. As the builder of His kingdom and His church , God determines who, what, where, when, how, and why He uses each one of us. He appoints the time and the place for His working in and through us in the grand stage of history. With infinite genius and profound design, God tells us that He has created us and prepared us before we were ever born for a wonderful purpose.

God has chosen His people for a great purpose, to perform good works. But what are good works? Good works are specific works that He ordained and destined us to perform for His glory. Jesus had His works ordained by the Father to do and when He completed them He said in John 17:4, "I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do." All who were selected by God for salvation should live with the realization that there is an eternal purpose for each one of us, good works that He has ordained for us to do for His glory.

That is how we too are to give glory to God. He gives to each one of us a work to do and we do it with all our might: be this kind of family member, this sort of employee and employer, this sort of church member, this sort of Christian. We are to love God and keep His commandments. Fear him, that's the beginning of wisdom. Love your neighbour as yourself. The Lord Jesus did all that: "I have brought you glory on earth" and so God has ordained and prepared us to do the same.

That ambition is what had motivated and driven Paul who wrote Ephesians 2:10, to live with all His might. Colossians 1:29, "For this I toil, struggling with all His energy that he powerfully works within me." That was the prevailing disposition of his mind; the controlling impulse, as he rose in the morning, he determined that day to live all his waking hours for the glory of God. "But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God" (Acts 20:24).

Jonathan Edwards understood this text and in the light of it was resolved to "to live with all my might, while I do live."

God chooses and works on us,in us, and through us to be His servants and ministers. We are not chosen to be passive and purposelessness, but to aggressively and energetically serve the Lord. Charles Spurgeon says that "Election is not a couch for ease, but an argument for seven-fold diligence. If God has set His choice upon us, let us aim to be choice men" There is such purpose and specific design for our lives. Like salvation, the "good works" of a believer were preordained by God before the foundation of the world.

So there is something for us in this world that has been eternally prepared by God. For this reason, the believer should live with a sense of eternal destiny. He should know that God has gone before him and determined what will be his contribution to His kingdom. Living with an eternal perspective requires that we boldly enter into the fullness of the good works that God has prepared for us to accomplish.

May you not waste your life. Invest it wisely. And may you realize what God has ordained for you to do from before the foundation of the world. May we step out in bold obedience. The good works he has prepared beforehand—we should walk in them!

Pastor Bill