Undivided

Paul writes to the Ephesian church in Ephesians 2:⁸ God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. ⁹ Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.¹⁰ For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. He is our only hope, but He is also the only direction we should be following in our lives. God looks out for our well-being, whether we deserve it or not, and by the way, we don't deserve it. We cannot make ourselves look any more spiritual and good to God because we are sinners, only saved by the grace of God. In the world of ME, it is only natural to cook up some "side" theology where we work for our salvation by our means. OUR MEANS mean nothing. We don't bring anything to the table when it comes to our salvation quotient, because even our offer is tainted with our sinful nature.

What do we do? We continue accepting God's love as He forgives again and again, and again, and so on... We have trouble grasping this kind of love because we don't experience it naturally. It is something that only God can give us, and we should never take it without glorifying God for it. His love sparks our love, and so on. As the above verse says, salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done. We don't have to jump through any hoops to get this great love. He just gives it because God IS love.

The more we live, the more we realize just how awesome His love is, as Paul says in Ephesians 3: ¹⁸ And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. ¹⁹ May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Keep in mind, these verses were written to a people who had previously worshipped silver idols, so they are already "primed" to worship a thing more than God. Our world promotes us to worship "things" because they are visible and easy to see. Jesus said to have the "greater" faith and worship what we don't see. Paul wrote to the church in Rome the following words about faith. Romans 10:¹⁷ So faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing the Good News about Christ.

Our faith must be Undivided, and that means all to Jesus. Not just a little of us and a little of God. It is all Jesus and none of us. He is all in all. Undivided...

Todays Message,

David Warren