January 17, 2011
Today’s Text: Read Ephesians 2:8-10
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:8-10
Today’s verses are some of the most powerful in the New Testament. It tells how we were saved, and to what purpose.
How are we saved? We were saved by grace! Grace is unmerited favor. We did not deserve anything good from God, yet in spite of ourselves God gave us His very best. It was His decision and will to save us. We don’t have the opportunity to be saved because we wanted to be or because we deserved to be. It was God’s gracious will alone that has brought us salvation! When we trust in Christ to save us by faith, God graciously counts us as right with Him and treats us as His children. That is incredible!
What was the purpose of our salvation? According to verse 10 we were saved “unto good works”. It was in God’s plan to save us so that we can do the things he wants us to do. We were saved to please God in the things that we do. We aren’t saved by the things that we do. We are saved to do good things!
Application:
In making Christ the center of our lives, and giving ourselves to Him first, we must recognize why we were saved. We were saved to please God by who we are and what we do. What are you going to do today to show your salvation?
Study the Scriptures with Ben Jennings 
Good morning,
I am going to continue to take care of my mother in law and get back to school with a positive attitude. i do believe that this is what God is calling me to do at this moment in time. So I am going to take care of His children to the best of my ability today. Continue to pray things with mom continue to seem worse each day. Praying for guidance.
Praying for you and your family.
praying for u laura! 🙂
since about everyone in my family are christians its hard for me at school to show my salvation to other people.its like im a different person at school home and church.it really needs to change.i need to show my salvation EVERYWHERE i go.please pray i can be better at that.thank you guys 🙂 oh and btw pastor ben,i have something for you tmrw night.you can keep it if u want to u know for like a memory or encouragement or something i don’t know.seeu guys tmrw and love u guys so much u wouldn’t imagine hehe 🙂 <33333
What I can do to show my salvation is I can invite some kids from my basketball team and just wittness to them just talk to them about God just stuff like that.
This is one of my favorite verses! God’s grace amazes me! His grace goes beyond just saving us from an eternity in hell, which is already huge, but He gives us heaven instead and blesses us with so much here on earth! I don’t know about you guys, but sinner like me does not deserve anything God has blessed me with! But like the verse says we are created unto good works, to do what pleases God. It’s not always easy putting God before myself, selfish I know, but man will it be worth it 🙂
I forgot to answer Pastor Ben’s question! I’m not sure what I can exactly do today to show my salvation, I’m stuck at home sick, but I can still do things for my family even though they know I’m saved, it’s still a nice thing to do and one of the only things I can think of to do while I’m sick!
God’s grace is astonishing! I can’t even express how much grace God had shown upon me, and every ounce of it I don’t deserve. With the gift that God’s given us, it’s our job to keep on giving the gift to others. Salvation, is the gift that keeps on giving. Since today is almost tomorrow, (10:23), I’m going to try and show others what an impact Jesus has been on my life. Others need to know the good news, because even though we think everyone knows it, but just chooses to ignore it, there are others who have never even heard it before. God’s grace needs to be shown to others through us, by our good works!