All of humanity and earth have been created by God and we were created to be connected to Him. He created us with beauty, distinction, and value and worth, and Scripture says that we were created in His image. Our culture continues to tells us the complexities of human life spontaneously occurred out of chaos and happened to result in highly designed and creative life forms.

However, Scripture teaches that all of creation was created for His glory and humanity is not only a part of creation, but we are created in His image in Genesis 1. We were not only created in the image of God, we were made to be like Him. Therefore, the more we understand who God is the more we understand who we are. When we are asking, “Who is God?” We are asking, “Who are we?”
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I think the biggest hurdle to this is our perception of time. We think, “I would read the Bible, pray, memorize Scripture, meditate…but I don’t have time.” I know this could come across as guilt so I want to be careful but to be honest the less time we spend with Jesus the busier we will feel and the more time we spend with Jesus the less busy we will feel.

Here is why: As we fall in love with Jesus God will inform us of what we need to be doing, He will give us wisdom so we know what to do, and He will give us peace so that we are not dominated by anxiety. Scripture tells us when we neglect this relationship we will be like a man trying to chop down a tree with a dull axe. Not happening. Scripture doesn’t teach us this to make us feel guilty, but to help us and empower us and I guarantee it will make a difference. When we take time to connect with Jesus and fall in love with Him you will see it in your life, your marriage, your children, and your work. It doesn’t mean everything will get better, but it means you will tap into supernatural activity.

7 of which I was made a minister, according to the gift of God’s grace which was given to me according to the working of His power.

In verse 7 the Apostle Paul refers to himself as a minister and in the original language means servant and through faith in Jesus Christ we are all servants. Throughout the gospels Jesus calls us to serve. Serving isn’t very popular in our culture or our churches, but when we are called into a relationship with God we aren’t only being pulled into an eternal reconciled relationship, but also eternal activity with God.

To be clear the activity doesn’t change our spiritual condition before God because it is only through the righteousness of Jesus Christ that our spiritual condition is changed. If we skip faith in Jesus Christ and go directly to activity it results in self-righteousness and us trying to prove our commitment with God. This will inevitably lead to exhaustion and frustration. Therefore, we first start with relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ’s work on the cross and then it results in activity with God.

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When you read Ephesians 2:4 it says simply, “But God…”. In the midst of all our chaos with finances, relationships, health, guilt, shame, confusion, pollution, divorce, pain, defiance, and on and on Scripture teaches us that God doesn’t leave us alone in that pain and chaos and Scripture says, “But God…” Probably the two greatest words in Scripture.

Sometimes people say that people wrote the Bible, however, the Bible describes humanity as dead in our sin, children of wrath, sons of disobedience, and eternally separated from God and if people wrote the Bible they would have made people the hero of the story, not God. The Bible isn’t about people, but about God responding to people in the midst of our pain and when we see the phrase “but God” it is the point in the story where everything gets better.

It is the point in the movie where the hero of the story enters the room, where Gandolf the white appears, when Edward comes for Bella, when Vince Young walks in on 4th down for the championship, when mom returns from the cruise after 5 days, and at the moment when it seems the darkest, without hope Scripture teaches us, “But God.”

Our culture today will ask, “Saved from what?” Saved from my huge house, my luxury car with heated seats, my vacations on the beach, my education, my wealth, what could we possibly need to be saved from?

All of us need to be saved from our broken and exhausted souls that are constantly looking for relief. Broken souls that are constantly unsatisfied, constantly trying to fill our stomachs and exhausted because we never find satisfaction that lasts. At best they are merely moments of relief.

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Not really a popular topic in our culture today. However, if you turn to Ephesians 2 verse 1 it simply reads.

1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,

Not a verse that you will find on a lot of Hallmark Cards around this Mother’s Day, but in verse 1 we see the pronoun “you” and in verse 3 we see the pronoun “we” so when it says we are spiritually dead it is talking about all people. It isn’t the bad people, the criminals, the dangerous, the teenagers of the world, or the really bad people who don’t recycle. It describes all people and it describes our spiritual condition before God as being dead.

Now I know some are thinking, “I don’t feel dead. I got up this morning, got dressed, got in my car, and got a cup of coffee.” Dead people don’t drink coffee.

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This basically means we all become Jedi knights and we can predict the future.

This means that most of humanity has an innate understanding of a god. We have an intuitive understanding that there is a creator / higher power that is bigger than all of this. Only a small few reject or deny the existence of a god.

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