The Plan: What is involved? – 29 April 2009
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.
All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions… And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. Ephesians 2:1-9 [NIV]
‘As for you’, Paul says, ‘you were dead’. A harsh thing to say, one might think. But that, according to Paul is what being out of God’s plan means. I am not known by God; I am not recognised as part of God’s new Kingdom. But, Paul assures us, we can be in the Kingdom! How? First we have to recognise that, outside God’s Plan, we are doomed to lives dominated by selfishness and ‘the cravings of our sinful nature’. Whilst these seem OK and even attractive to many people and indeed are the very stuff that many markets serve and thrive on, in the long-term they ruin our lives and we ‘die inside’.
That domination had to be dealt with. So far I have not mentioned that God’s Plan involves not just humanity but the “Ruler of the kingdom of the air”: the power of evil in our world and a constant spiritual pressure on humanity. It is that spiritual domination (which we are hardly aware of) that God has challenged and overcome.
And what was involved for God? Well, it cost the life of his Son! It was incredibly costly, but for love one will do anything. One will go to the ‘ends of the earth’ to save one who is loved – and God did. He raised us up with Christ and ‘seated us in the heavenly realms’.
And what is involved for us? Nothing! That’s what it says! Nothing. Not giving money, not being good, or being careful, or being nice, or sorting oneself out a bit first before coming to God. None of those things! God is kinda nice! He did it because he is good – and for some strange reason he loves me and you.
That’s what is involved for us – and actually we feel it is harder than it seems to accept that we just have to come as we are. We feel we do have to earn it. But once we have realised it is a gift then, wow! Thanks, God. | 