No this isn't a new Dan Brown book about Leonardo da Vinci and some
secret insight into the life of Christ that was been hidden and banished by the
Catholic Church and found by one of the greatest mind in the 15th
century.
I was watching a new show
on the Discovery Channel call "Doing Da Vinci".
The whole premise behind the show is a team of engineers, expert metal
workers, and carpenters working together to build ideas and plans that Da Vinci
had 500 years ago but were never built.
It is a fascinating show.
The first idea of Da Vinci they constructed was a tank designed to
protect the soldiers insight while blasting cannons in a 360 degrees. The result of their work was pretty
impressive.
So what does this have to do
with Ephesians 2:1-10 you might ask? This
passage is probably pretty familiar to most.
In verse eight we see a frequently quoted passage about the nature of our
forgiveness and salvation. It is a gift
given to us through grace apart from anything we can do to earn it. This idea forms one of the fundamental
pillars of the evangelical faith.
But as I read it through this time, this wasn't what caught my eye. Rather I was found myself dwelling on the last verse. "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
I wonder if sometimes in our cultural context we focus so much on what we can do to get ahead, to right our own ship, to made advancement in our careers, to be the master of our own domain that I think it is incredibly easy to forget that we are a workmanship of someone else. We were created in Christ Jesus for a purpose. The plans of our life, they were put into motion long before we could actualize them. So as the ideas of a genius lay dormant for 500 years become reality in the 21 century so too are we in the eyes of our maker. The free gift of grace allows us to reconnect with our craftsman's. We have been moved from the broken pile (with little hope of fixing) to the work-in-progress pile. The joy of our journey, no matter where we are in life is to find out what those good works are and to participate in the plans that were drawn for you and me.
What is the craftsman's doing in your life?
What have you discovered about the plans prepared for you in advance?
How can the body of Christ encourage you in this journey?
I like this reminder that we are not really our own person. Our lives have been entrusted to us by God to use for his glory and not our own. I think this is what is meant by being a "slave" to Christ instead of ourselves. So many people have endless freedoms and choices but are not happy. We as Christians are set free to the enslaving nature of self centeredness and given a new purpose bigger than ourselves: to serve the Lord. It's change in perspective that can make a big difference in how we approach everything we do. It is so easy for me to forget that in my daily life and just live as if I am the center of the universe.
Easter is a perfect time to think about grace. It's a profound of grace, too – one that, as the text says, lets us do the work for which God has already prepared us...not the work we think we'd like to do. As Larissa says, this is a new purpose bigger than ourselves.