Ephesians 2:4-10 (ASV)
4 but God, being rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
5 even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace have ye been saved),
6 and raised us up with him, and made us to sit with him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus:
7 that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus:
8 for by grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
9 not of works, that no man should glory.
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them.
Here we have one of the 44 times of “But GOD” in the KJV bible. We can look at this in the following way: There is a situation but GOD intervened. Therefore it is important to know what was before the but GOD and what follows. Here in the verses before it says “But GOD” “Ephesians 2:1-3 (ASV) And you did he make alive, when ye were dead through your trespasses and sins, 2 wherein ye once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the powers of the air, of the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience; 3 among whom we also all once lived in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest:–” You can see that our condition before we came to know Jesus Christ. The fallen state of humanity. Despite of that disobediences towards GOD and following the ways of the devil GOD Himself intervened. Why did He do that? Because of His great love, grace and mercy. He wanted us, who rebelled against Him and were dead in our sins, to be with Him for eternity.
Imagine now we are not only saved and forgiven when we have faith in Jesus Christ and the finished work on the cross but we are born again, His adopted children and seated (spiritually) with Him in heavenly places. In other words we are positioned spiritually in heaven, where Christ is. We are no longer mere earthlings; our citizenship is in heaven “Philippians 3:20 (ASV) For our citizenship is in heaven; whence also we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:”. We are part of GOD’s family. Not only that He now dwells in us by the Holy Spirit “Colossians 1:27 (ASV) to whom God was pleased to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:”
GOD did all of this not because we are good or have shown any merit or the things we did. This is so that none of us can brag. He did it because of His amazing grace which He wanted to demonstrate. We are His workmanship, He is the potter and we are the clay. We are not self-made people, we are GOD made people. A people who have faith in Jesus Christ.
Out of that grace, which He shows us, He prepared for us good things to do. Because of Him loving and saving us we now desire to please Him and want to do the good works that He prepared for us to walk in.
Let us remember when we are in dire straits that there is hope, a“but GOD”.
Let us thank the LORD Jesus Christ for His amazing grace, mercy, kindness and love that He demonstrated to us. “Ephesians 2:8 (KJV) For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:”
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