His Part--Our Part

"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast."  (Ephesians 2:8-9)

As regular readers know, these verses were brought to our attention by Mr. or Ms. Anonymous in a comment a few posts back. Although we do not often comment on comments, we did on that one. It is always a welcomed experience when we hear something from the Holy Spirit and it is almost immediately confirmed by someone else who heard the same thing. What follows is an expanded version of what we believe God is trying to tell us with these verses.

These verses from Ephesians 2 are so familiar to most Christians that any further expansion of them could be tiring or redundant. Most of us heard them beginning at our own born-again experience and have repeated them to people we were witnessing to since that time.

There is one point in these verses that is usually missed. We tend to think the word "saved" refers exclusively to being born-again. If you did not think that, you can still be part of "we." This can be an act of patience for you as the rest of us catch up. One of the things this author enjoys most about writing is he learns so much during the process--and from the comments that are made later.

As we began to say, being saved only starts when we are born-again. A quick study of the Greek grammar here shows us that the word "saved" in these verses is from a verb that literally means, to be delivered from any and all suffering and judgement. (The dictionary definition would take more room than we have here.) Furthermore, the tense shows us this action was completed at some point in the past. Putting that all together, we see that sometime ago, all suffering and judgement were eliminated from us. Where there is no judgement, the grace of God has free reign to accomplish His works. Although it was the death of Jesus on the cross that made it possible, this happened for each of us individually when we activated grace by an act of faith. That act, of course, was making Jesus Lord of our lives. I can see you are not all as excited about this as I am. Wait, you get more.

"He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32)

The grace that drew us to God and compelled us to make Jesus our Lord, began to work salvation in our lives at that very moment. It is the same grace we activate every time we believe what God is telling us to do, and act on it. We cannot simply verbalize that we believe a thing and not do something in response to that belief. (James 2:18) When we really believe anything, we act on it. That is the way human beings are wired, if you will.

Having been born-again, we find things are different than they were before. We think differently. We act differently. We begin to understand our lives are not the same anymore. No matter what comes against us, the grace of God helps us through it. That is salvation at work in our lives. Whatever we need is included in our salvation and provided by His grace. Our part is to simply believe--then act on what He tells us to do.

Perhaps the Lord is speaking something to you right now. Demonstrate your faith by acting on it, whatever it is. Just as salvation came to your house when you made Jesus Lord of your life, salvation will come to your house to meet your every need. God bless you as you do!