March 20, 1998

Ephesians 2: 10

Imperfect People

"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

I was just told the story of a girl who was brought up to believe that any wrong she did was excusable, because she was a Christian. Her father, a sterling example, collected a large insurance settlement from his former employer for a disability that did not exist. She would admittedly do terrible, immoral things and excuse herself because she was a "Christian." The family spent many hours watching PTL on TV. It occurred to me that this family based their behavior on their interpretation of the preceding verses of this chapter that deals with God's grace. In verse 8 we are told "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God."

We are in world of choices. As imperfect people, we choose pieces of God's word to listen to and ignore the rest. We think of the Bible as a buffet that we can pick and choose the parts that appeal the most to us.

While we will never be close to perfection, we should always try to do good works and be thankful for God's grace. We should not use God's grace as an excuse to be sinful. As we are reminded in a quote from Thomas Carlyle: "Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct"

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Prayer: Heavenly Father. Help me today to do the things you would choose for me to do, not the things I would choose for myself. Amen. [Yesterday |Lenten Index | Tomorrow]