“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” Ephesians 2:10
There is an infinite difference between the materials that men employ to construct and compose their masterpieces–and the materials that God uses to create sinners anew in Christ Jesus. Men work with the best of materials to showcase their talents, but God works with the worst–to showcase His power, wisdom, and skill.
The most gifted artists create out of the finest materials. But God is not like men. His thoughts are not our thoughts, and His ways are not our ways. He employs, not the best, not the finest, not the most appealing of materials when creating His masterpieces–but the worst!
God sculpts and paints
Therefore God has purposed to conform His redeemed people into the pristine image of His darling Son. While keeping His eye fixed upon His Son, using the chisel of His grace–God sculpts rebel sinners into the likeness of Christ!
God paints, not on a clean white canvas–but on a canvas that has been . . .
stained with sin,
spotted with corruption, and
bespattered with the filth of the fall.
As the perfect Painter, God looks to Christ His Model, and, with the brush of omnipotent mercy in His ever-steady hand of sovereign power–He begins to paint His children, one by one, into the family portrait; tracing every line with divine precision, filling in every grace with unfailing accuracy, accentuating every corner of their character with a whole array of heavenly hues:
blues of faith and surrender,
violets of honesty and godly fear,
greens of tenderness and gratitude,
reds of love and compassion,
yellows of patience and perseverance–
painting them all in the similitude of Christ His beloved Son!
God does not compose His symphony on a blank piece of sheet music. Rather, He blots out the discordant notes of sin, rebellion, and impurity–and with the permanent ink of immutable grace, He rewrites the sorrowful sonnet of sin, transforming it into the song of salvation, inscribing on our hearts the heavenly notes of free forgiveness, eternal life, and everlasting righteousness through Christ our Savior! With heavenly wisdom and unseen skill, God makes the sad song of human misery–into a glorious gospel melody, a tune that sounds best when played on the broken instruments of contrite hearts!
Our God has . . . .
done the unthinkable,
saved the unsavable,
fixed the unfixable!
He has created a masterpiece using a rotting chunk of fallen humanity as His workpiece! What a wonder! …
When God’s work is all done,
and His poem is finished,
when His symphony composed,
and His masterpiece complete–
He will present us to Himself holy and without blemish, “a glorious church, having no spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing!”
Therefore God’s work of grace in us begins in regeneration and conversion. It continues until the day when our salvation is consummated in resurrection glory when we will be perfectly conformed to the image of our Lord Jesus Christ!
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