“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).
The Purpose of God’s Workmanship
When we become Christians, we become a new creation. John 3:3-5 teaches that someone born of water and the Spirit is “born again.” According to Paul, we are baptized into the death of Jesus. We were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. Baptism is when we shed the old person enslaved to sin and become a new person whose sins are forgiven. As Jesus says, we are born again of water and the Spirit. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”
As a new creation, we must leave sin and selfishness behind. 2 Corinthians 5:15 states that Jesus died “that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.” Later in Ephesians 5:8, Paul urges us to “Walk as children of light…And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness…” The apostle John says in 1 John 2:3-6 that we know Him if we keep His commandments. God creates a new person for a purpose: He wants us to forsake sin and pursue righteousness by living as Jesus lived.
Walking in Good Works
In addition to purifying our lives, God wants us to fill our lives with good deeds. When Jesus talks about separating the sheep from the goats in Matthew 25:34-36, He welcomes those who fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and visited the sick. Christian lives filled with good deeds are a part of what God envisioned for His people from the beginning. Remember what Paul revealed in Ephesians 1: God chose to adopt those who would believe in Jesus before the foundation of the world. Not only did God predestine Christians for adoption, He also mapped out the kind of lives His people would lead: lives of good deeds.
Our Daily Walk as God’s Workmanship
Finding opportunities to do good and to share, to relieve those who suffer, and help bear the burdens of those loaded down with care are a part of God’s grand purpose for our lives. Paul refers to our “walk” in Christ. Eight times in Ephesians 2, Paul describes the human life as a walk. We once walked according to the course of this world, but now we are called to walk worthy of our calling. Scripture represents the life of the righteous as a walk, similar to how Enoch, Noah, and Abraham walked with God. How we walk represents how we live: do we walk in righteousness or unrighteousness?
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