You Are God's Masterpiece

The Bible says that you are God's workmanship. On this episode, I want to talk to you about that masterpiece that he is creating in you.

And now here's your host, dr Ryan S Howard.

Ephesians 2-10 says we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Well, this word that is translated from Greek into English as workmanship in the ESV, in other versions is translated as masterpiece, and that is exactly what God is creating in you. You see, there are things that you have gone through, there's things that you are going through, and they are all fashioning you into something, preparing you for what God has coming for you. I'm sure that you can look in your past and you can see how God has used things to shape you, to develop you, to prepare you, to develop your character, all these different things. I can think of many things, such as being stabbed in the back at work, many things that I did not enjoy at the time, but I could look back and see how God used them in a mighty way. There are things health-related things that I have seen God use to bring me to a deeper reliance on him and coming out of it, it's just really grown my faith, and so we need to make sure that we are looking at things in this way. Now, another thing to realize is that it's a work in process. We are a work in process, and so God is preparing us for what he has planned for us to do. He has planned these things beforehand. If you're going to fashion a wooden spoon out of a block of wood, it's going to take some time. And if you were in the middle of fashioning that spoon out of that block of wood and you couldn't even see what it was, and somebody came to you and said what is this? This is a waste of time, you would say well, you don't know what I know. I know the intentions that I have for this, what I'm going to use it for, and I need to make sure it's ready. Well, how often do we do that with the Lord? God is in the middle of creating that masterpiece in you and in me, and we sit there and want to question him. Well, if we know Christ, we know that God uses all things for our good because we're called according to his purposes. That's Romans 828, and it's true everywhere in life, whether it's at work, at home, in the community, in the culture, whatever it is that you're doing. There's another couple of verses here that I want to point out that are, I think, helpful, and that is 2 Corinthians 3, verses 2 and 3. And it says you yourselves are our letters of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all. And you show that you are a letter from Christ, delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on the tablets of human hearts. You see, we are a letter of recommendation, we're a testimony what we are doing. You see, that spoon that you fashioned out of wood, right there, would point not to the glory of the spoon but to the glory of the artist, the one who created the spoon, the one who fashioned it. It points to that person who created the spoon, just like what you're being fashioned into points to the glory of the Lord, points to the Lord because you are his handiwork, you are his workmanship, you are his masterpiece. We don't know exactly how God is going to use everything, but we can know for sure that he is going to use it. So what is it that's going on right now with you that you can trust the Lord with, that you can put in His hands, that you can go deep with Him, carve out that time to seek Him how he wants to use it and for Him to strengthen you and focus on that masterpiece. God is much more interested in who you are becoming rather than what you are doing Now. Of course, what we do matters, but God is more interested in what you are becoming and becoming more like Christ. Hey, if you want help with this, I want to suggest that you get my 21-day devotional 21 days to a spirit-led life. This has four parts. It goes into making room for God to speak. It goes into developing key spiritual disciplines and it gets into living with the essential virtues that we need to have. God is developing those in us. And the fourth part is walking by faith. So I hope you'll check that out, get the link in the show notes or visit ryanshowercom and you can get the free download there. Make sure you like and subscribe if you're on YouTube. If you're not and you're only listening to the audio, you can find the link to the YouTube video in the show notes. Thanks for listening, god bless, and we'll see you in the next episode.

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