Author: Paul Nordman

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God’s Workmanship in You

Peggy and I have been undergoing an extensive master bathroom remodel. A new shower stands where sinks used to be, the new sinks go where the tub once sat dormant, and we’re gaining a few more feet of closet space. It’s shaping up nicely, and it’s going to be great. Our contractors are truly craftsmen, purposeful in planning and exceptional in execution. Peggy and I have done plumbing work before, but not like these guys. We’ve taped, mudded and drywalled, but not to their standard. We’ve tiled floors and set cabinets before, but these artisans bring an excellence that builds only through experience. Yes, it’s going to be great, thanks to their workmanship.

Through His prophet Ezekiel, God foretold a remodel inconceivable to the human mind and of incalculable proportions: “I will give you a new heart,” He said, “and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart.”1 This is not merely change for the sake of change, but to a glorious end. God continues: “I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”2 Then with His Spirit alive in us, we obey Him not only because we must, but because tender, responsive hearts absolutely delight in doing so.

Such transformation into the image of Christ is every bit as much an act of grace as is our salvation. We could attempt to change by our own power and wisdom, as though transformation were a “Do It Yourself (DIY)” project, but we would fall far short of God’s master plan for us. Paul writes, “the grace of God has appeared . . . training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.”3 God’s grace—and only God’s grace—could bring about such change, for “we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”4 Like a master craftsman with great skill and purpose, God exceptionally executes His purposeful plan in us.

Salvation is only our beginning of new life. Let God strip away the old from you and build in you the new. Let Him sand away your rough edges. Rejoice as He equips you “to do every good work”5 and thus live an impactful Kingdom life. Give thanks for His workmanship. And enjoy the remodel.

Create in me a clean heart, O God.”6 Mold me as you must and always for your purposes and glory. Make me steadily more like Jesus. I am your workmanship, for which I am ever grateful. In Christ I pray. Amen.

1 Ezekiel 36:26 NLT
2 Ezekiel 36:27 NIV
3 Titus 2:11-12 ESV, emphasis added
4 Ephesians 2:10 ESV
5 2 Timothy 3:17 NLT
6 Psalm 51:10 ESV

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Change from the Inside

Where do you picture God in proximity to yourself? When you pray, for instance, do you visualize Him as being “up there, somewhere”? After all, Paul says, “set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.”1 Do you envision Jesus side by side with you, as He himself said, “surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age”?2 Does God have your back or go before you? David marveled at both: “You hem me in behind and before.”3 Does God uphold you from beneath? After all, “his everlasting arms are under you,”4 assured Moses in his farewell address. These comforting promises attest to what we instinctively know: God is all around us and everywhere we go.

Yet amid this potpourri of prepositions stands one incomprehensible to us: Christ is in us. He lives in us through His Spirit in us. On the eve of His crucifixion, Jesus instructed His disciples, “the Spirit of truth . . . will be in you,”5 then prayed to His Father that it be so—that “the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”6 Then it is through this indwelling of the Spirit that God transforms us into the likeness of Christ. Writes Paul, “It is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”7 And it is God who is “working in us that which is pleasing in his sight.”8 It is “from the Lord, who is the Spirit” that we “are being transformed into his image.”9 Who steadily changes us to be more like Jesus? Christ in us through His Spirit in us.

Some believers contend that changing into Jesus’ likeness is “up to us,” as though having been saved by grace through faith in Christ and born of the Spirit, we are left to grow up into His likeness by our own wisdom and power—orphans attempting the impossible. Others may not articulate it as such, yet they subject themselves to new “rules” and then berate themselves for failing to follow them. Indeed, we do have a role in the transformation process, and we will talk about this in a future post. Yet the truth remains, we can no more transform ourselves than we could save ourselves. Salvation and transformation—both are the work of the Holy Spirit in us; both are the manifestation of God’s love for us.

This week, take time to contemplate the richness of God’s transforming grace. Consider the changes He has already made in you, and rest in the certainty that “he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”10

Father, thank you for the richness of your grace; it is beyond our understanding. Open our hearts to receive and rejoice in your precious gift of transformation. In Christ we pray. Amen.

1 Colossians 3:1 NIV
2 Matthew 28:20 NIV
3 Psalm 139:5 NIV
4 Deuteronomy 33:27 NLT
5 John 14:17 ESV, emphasis added  
6 John 17:26 ESV, emphasis added
7 Philippians 2:13 ESV
8 Hebrews 13:21 ESV
9 2 Corinthians 3:18 NIV
10 Philippians 1:6 ESV

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Let’s Talk about Works

“For in Christ Jesus . . . The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” — Galatians 5:6 NIV

Amid our zealous defense of salvation by grace through faith alone—and specifically not by our good deeds1— we sometimes give short shrift to the divine call and command to Kingdom works. For when we are born of the Spirit through faith in Christ, we step into our purpose to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”2 Our earthly lives have heavenly purpose! Note our call is not to pursue our good ideas for God, but submit to His plan working through us. It is a matter of submission to Him, or what the apostle Paul calls, “the obedience that comes from faith;”3 and “the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ.”4 Faith and works are inseparable. As James rhetorically writes, “Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds.”5

But here’s the problem: Our flesh—our sin nature—is self-centered and disinclined to love selflessly. Paul writes to believers in Rome, “the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed it cannot.6 To the Galatians, he pens, “the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.”7 Something inside wants to do good, but our desire to be served trumps our desire to serve. And sometimes our desire to serve is born out of selfish motives, e.g., to earn God’s approval by our goodness instead of receiving His approval by His grace. How can we do the selfless work of love when our flesh is anything but selfless? Paul points out the way: “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.”8

Then how do we live by the Spirit and not our inwardly focused inclinations? We must be transformed from the inside out. Personally, I think transformation starts here: “We love because he first loved us.”9 Don’t read this in an obligatory “quid pro quo” sense, rather when we come to accept and humbly receive the eternal truth of God’s intense love for us—all of us together and each of us individually—our hearts change. We see things as they truly are and we orient ourselves accordingly. We “set our minds on the things of the Spirit.”10 And the renewal of our minds is in itself transformational, aligning our will with God’s.11 This is His work in us; He will do it.

Father, thank you for your intense love for us. It is beyond comprehension, though true. May your Spirit indwell us, conforming our desires to your own. Your will be done. In Christ we pray. Amen.

1 Ephesians 2:8-9
2 Ephesians 2:10 NIV
3 Romans 1:5 NIV
4 2 Corinthians 9:13 NIV
5 James 2:18 NIV
6 Romans 8:7 ESV, emphasis added
7 Galatians 5:17 ESV, emphasis added
8 Galatians 5:16 ESV
9 1 John 4:19 ESV
10 Romans 8:5 ESV
11 Romans 12:2