pray it: gentle in our time - ephesians 2:1-10

It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.

Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing. 
-Ephesians 2:1-10 (MSG)

Our passage this week reminds us that not only were we saved from something, but that we were saved for something. 

It's important to not lose sight of who did the saving (and who continues to do the saving).  We don't save ourselves from.  And we don't save ourselves for.  GOD does that.

Psalm 18:35 states "You have given me the shield of your salvation, and your right hand supported me, and your gentleness made me great."

Wow.

Beautiful and true. 

It is God who saves. 

It is God who supports us.

It is God (through His gentleness... hmmm... interesting!) who makes us great.

PoC, thanks for joining in this endeavor to pray like Jesus over these past few weeks.  This week, as we "pray it" in our time, in preparation for this Sunday, perhaps the most gentle thing we can do is to stop and ask the Holy Spirit how gentle we are being on ourselves.

Sometimes I get less-than-gentle when circumstances don't appear to be changing despite my prayers.  Despite my efforts.  I get exhausted when I try (and fail) to do things in my own strength and I also get discouraged when I mistakenly begin to view my abilities and outcomes as the sole thing God is depending on.  (Crazy, right?!) 

This week's prayer challenge:  Ask the Holy Spirit to help you spend some time reflecting on how gentle you are on yourself.  Do you need a change in perspective?  Ask God to help you with that now.  Before we successfully see that we have been saved both from something and for something, and before we successfully go out into "all the world" and do that, we really need to be connected to God and have a proper view of him and of ourselves. 

Dear God,

Thank you for drawing me close to you.  For saving me.  For giving me passions, purposes, and missions, and equipping me fully in these tasks.  Please help me keep a proper perspective of you and help me to remain in your presence daily so that I'm forever mindful of and connected to my source of strength.

Amen.

PoC|Coverage is tonight at 6pm.  It's the quickest and easiest way to get connected, and the quickest and easiest way to make a difference. 

Pastor Celia