Created for Good Works

There is a question that quietly haunts almost every human heart: "Why am I here?" We search for the answer in careers, relationships, achievements, and sometimes in the bottom of our own exhaustion when nothing else has satisfied. Today's passages do not leave us guessing. They answer the question plainly, and the answer is more freeing than most of us have dared to believe.

The apostle Paul, writing to the church at Ephesus, builds to one of the most important sentences in all of Scripture: "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:10). The word translated "workmanship" is the Greek word poiema, the root of our English word "poem." You are God's poem. A poem is not accidental; every word is chosen, every line placed with intention, every rhythm deliberate. And this poem, Paul says, was written to do something, to walk in good works that God prepared in advance.

For the new reader, notice what comes just before verse 10. Paul has spent verses 8 and 9 making clear that we are not saved by our own efforts or goodness. Grace, God's unearned, undeserved favor, is the only ground of our salvation. But grace is never the end of the story; it is the beginning of it. We are not saved by good works, but we are absolutely saved for them. There is a destination built into your rescue.

The prophet Jeremiah speaks to a people in exile, displaced, confused, wondering if God had forgotten them, and delivers this word: "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end" (Jeremiah 29:11). That phrase "expected end" means a future and a hope. If you feel like you are in exile today, far from where you thought you would be, uncertain of your next step, God's message has not changed. He has not revised His plans for you. He is still thinking thoughts of peace toward you, and He has good works already waiting on the path ahead.