To receive the gift of salvation, we must come to God with empty hands of faith. This means recognizing our complete inability to save ourselves by good works or religious deeds. It means confessing we have nothing to offer the Lord that could earn His favor. Faith is laying aside…
God’s grace is an undeserved, unmerited gift. It is not something we could ever earn through our own efforts. When we understand the depth of our sin, helplessness and inability to save ourselves, we desperately seek deliverance. We search for protection from the coming storm of God’s wrath against all…
Since we have been so richly blessed with new life, victory, and security in Christ, we should stand firm in the gift of salvation. Let us not take for granted or forget what God has done for us. God’s grace toward us is a firm foundation, a solid rock upon…
In saving us, God intends to “show the immeasurable riches of his grace” toward us (Eph. 2:7). We cannot begin to fathom the depths of God’s mercy or comprehend the tenderness and strength of his love. But we see glimpses of it as he daily pours out grace upon grace…
“By grace you have been saved,” Paul declares in Ephesians 2:5. God saved us not because of any good deed or merit in us, but solely because of his abundant mercy and great love. We contributed absolutely nothing to our salvation; it was an entirely undeserved gift from start to…
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked” (Ephesians 2:1). Before meeting Christ, we were trapped in spiritual death, utterly incapable of saving ourselves or earning favor with God. Our sinful desires controlled us and we were obliviously headed for destruction. Reflect deeply on…
Paul says that God fills the church, Christ’s body, with His very presence and power (Ephesians 1:22-23). Just as God’s glory once filled the temple in the Old Testament, now His Spirit fills the church – comprised of individual believers like you and me. What an amazing privilege! Not only…
Paul also prays we would know “the immeasurable greatness of [God’s] power toward us who believe” (Ephesians 1:19). The same God who raised Jesus from the dead after being in the grave three days has limitless power available to us as His followers. Yet we often live defeated, discouraged, and…
Paul also wants us to know more fully “the riches of [God’s] glorious inheritance in the saints” (Ephesians 1:18). Though we look forward to the amazing inheritance we will receive from God, this phrase actually refers to something different – our value and worth to God as His people. While…