A Stirring Statement of God’s Purpose for Us

Scripture — Ephesians 2:8-10 (NRSV)

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

Devotion

Perhaps one of the clearest and most stirring statements of God’s purpose for us comes in the second chapter of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians: “For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life” (2:10).

Before we examine this statement, however, it’s important to pay attention to the context. Without doing so, we can easily turn God’s gracious purpose for our lives into an endless effort to earn God’s favor through our good works.

Ephesians 2:8-9 is one of the most familiar and beloved passages in all of Scripture: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” These verses proclaim the extraordinary good news that we are saved from sin and death by God’s grace, which we receive through faith. We don’t earn salvation through our works. We don’t earn God’s saving, embracing love. It is given to us by grace . . . freely, generously, and abundantly. Ephesians 2:7 refers to “the immeasurable riches of [God’s] grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” Immeasurable riches of grace! Now that’s a lot of grace, don’t you think?

God’s grace saves us from sin and death (2:1-5). But that’s not all. Verse 10 reveals that God also saves us through Christ from a meaningless and fruitless life into a life of truly good works. This verse says, “For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.” Notice the language of creation here. We are “what God has made us.” We are “created in Christ Jesus for good works.” When we are saved by God’s grace, we begin to experience the new creation through Christ (see 2 Cor 5:17).

In this new creation, God has a purpose for us. God’s purpose is that we should do the good works God has prepared for us. God has good works for us to do, and a new way of living because we are new creatures in Christ. You may recall that in Ephesians 1 we are to live for the praise of God’s glory. Now we learn more about how we can do that. We glorify God when we do the works God has for us to do. We glorify God when we live according to God’s purpose for us.

This is where Christians often miss the point. Some of us assume that God’s purpose for humanity has mainly to do with the work of pastors, missionaries, and others who engage in what we might call “full-time Christian service.” We assume that our purpose, to the extent we have one, is to support those who are truly doing the good works of God. We may also assume that the good works God has for most of us to do are mainly the obviously “religious things,” like going to church, reading one’s Bible, praying, giving to one’s church, caring for the poor, seeking justice for the oppressed, bearing witness to the gospel, and the like. But limiting the good works of God to these misses the vast majority of the good works God has for us to do.

Now, let me be clear, I think it’s great to support those who serve in churches, missions, and other service organizations. And we certainly should be doing the things I just labeled as “religious things.” But God’s purpose for humanity includes far more than these fine things. Remember the first command God gave to human beings back in Genesis 1:28: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion.” Then, Genesis 2:15 reveals that God gave humankind the task of tilling and keeping the garden God had created. Tilling has to do with helping the world to be fruitful. Keeping has to do with stewarding it wisely and protecting it. So, taking into account what we learn from the creation accounts in Genesis, we understand that the good works God has for us to do include the things we associate with family, farming, governing, and so forth.

In other words, the good works of God mentioned in Ephesians 2:10 have everything to do with what we might call ordinary work. But when ordinary work is done for God’s glory, it is no longer ordinary. It is filled with new meaning and purpose. Plus, as a way of glorifying God, our work is also an expression of worship (see Rom 12:1-2). God’s purpose for us is that we would do all the work of our lives in a way that honors God, reflecting God’s values, God’s calling, and God’s amazing grace.

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: What Does It Mean to Be Saved? Paying Attention to the Tense of the Verb.