Created by the Master Creator

Looking at today’s blog post, I was reminded of something I heard decades ago, where a young child turns to a friend — a friend who was possibly being a bit derisive — and said, “God made me, and God don’t make no junk!”

Today we’re featuring a writer who was new to us, but came recommended by one of our other writers. Joshua Jarvis can best be described as an entrepreneur with a background in various types of business ventures. He is also the author of Kingdom Driven Leader.

You can read more at his website, where he writes about God, Family and Leadership, or click the title which follows to get there via today’s article.

I Am A Masterpiece Created By God

Calling yourself a masterpiece feels a bit strange. However, the Bible is pretty clear that we were planned, handcrafted and that we have a purpose. While we might not feel perfect, God sees us differently. Let’s examine how He sees us.

You are a masterpiece.

For we are God’s masterpiece,  – Ephesian 2:10 NLT

A few years ago, I heard a message that really highlighted this verse and what it means.  It’s tough to take what a Pastor says and let it change the way you think when the messages are 30 minutes or less and it focuses only on a part of a verse.  However, I’ve personally always struggled with value and this message bounced around in my head for a long time.  Out of all the I am affirmations, saying I am a masterpiece feels weird.  I know that God has paid the ultimate price for me and I know He loves me, but if I’m honest, sometimes I need reassurance that I was made with a purpose in mind.

After that sermon, I wanted to dive in and find out what does the Bible has to say about me (and you) being a masterpiece.

We have become his poetry, a re-created people that will fulfill the destiny he has given each of us, for we are joined to Jesus, the Anointed One. Even before we were born, God planned in advance our destiny and the good works we would do to fulfill it! Ephesians 2:10 TPT

Almost every translation of this verse uses the word “workmanship.”  It’s pretty easy to see why anyone might have glossed over this verse.   I’m God’s workmanship reads like, “I’m a fantastic chair or object. ” I might be great but nothing that God is proud of, or at least nothing unique. Why then do only a few translations use the word masterpiece?   This is one reason why it’s worth looking into verses.  If the verse whispers to you, then spend some time there trying to understand it.

The original Greek used the word poema, the root word for poem.  If you’ve ever had to write a poem you likely remember how intentional you had to be. Syllables, rhyming, rhythm, and flow, a poem is one big artistic calculation. Today if you write a poem it’s being typed into a document that lives on the cloud.  Every help is available at your fingertips. Thesaurus, dictionary, and grammar helpers all there making suggestions and allowing you to craft something truly better than it could be without that help.  However, when this verse was written, it was a time of intense artistry.  Every letter hand stroked by the author knowing that one mistake could ruin the entire creation.

You were planned

God says you were planned with the intentionality of a loving poem, a masterpiece. Masterpieces have to be planned.  Imagine if one day you just followed every whim you had in your mind.   While it might be fun to imagine, I can’t imagine any masterpiece coming from such a haphazard approach. Creativity is essential, but so is having a clear plan. Psalm says that he crafted us in our mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13). God tells Jeremiah in verse 1:5, “I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb.”  You are not a mistake, God planned for you. He has a clear purpose for your life. God has a very specific plan for you but instead of telling you all about it, He wants you to discover it with Him. He’s inviting all of us on an adventure to uncover the story of why He created us.

You are a new creation

It might be difficult to call yourself a masterpiece when you think about your life and your own accomplishments.  We might view our life through a lens from the past, but God doesn’t do that.  When we accepted Him, we got a new life… we were born again.  This phrase isn’t just to identify weird Christians.  As a born-again Christian, I am a new creation.  I might have scars from my past but I am not defined by my past and neither are you.  Instead, God uses those scars to multiply what He wants to do through you.

You are perfect

Like any great work of art, you are perfect. No great artwork looks for ways to appear more beautiful or to improve itself. It just is. When you accepted the new life of Christ you became this perfect creation. This statement isn’t giving you permission to do whatever you want, I’m not saying you don’t have room for growth.  Instead, because you are perfect you now have abilities that you didn’t have before. You can now ACT perfectly, whereas before you could not. That doesn’t mean you’ll always act perfectly but that you have this ability. The great news is that God has already forgiven us for our past and our future.

Every time I struggle with this, I think about how I feel about my kids. Every new parent thinks their babies are perfect. Their children have done nothing to earn this praise and can do nothing to improve this view.  Parents see their children as masterpieces.   Imagine then, how God in His infinite love sees us!

You formed my innermost being, shaping my delicate inside and my intricate outside, and wove them all together in my mother’s womb. I thank you, God, for making me so mysteriously complex! Everything you do is marvelously breathtaking. It simply amazes me to think about it! How thoroughly you know me, Lord! You even formed every bone in my body when you created me in the secret place; carefully, skillfully you shaped me[c] from nothing to something. You saw who you created me to be before I became me! Before I’d ever seen the light of day, the number of days you planned for me were already recorded in your book.

Psalm 139:13-16 TPT

Takeaway:  You were planned intentionally. You are perfect in God’s eyes. There is nothing you can do to change His love for you.

 

You Were God’s Idea

We’re continually grateful to HarperCollins Christian Publishing for special permission to share book excerpts here at Christianity 201.

Today’s devotional is one you might want to read aloud to any kids or early teens you have nearby right now. Devotions Daily kicked off this one earlier this week with a note saying that some of their most popular readings are actually kids devotionals. (I’ve found that to be true in my work connecting people with resources; there’s a Max Lucado devotional that I’ve recommended for men more than I’ve recommended it for children.)

This one is an excerpt from You Can Count on God: 100 Devotions for Kids.

[Adults: Check out the bonus item at the bottom of the page today.]

If it’s possible that anyone here doesn’t know Max Lucado, he as been a pastor in churches in Miami, Florida; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and San Antonio, Texas. He is America’s bestselling inspirational author with more than 130 million books in print.

Click the header which follows to read this at Devotions Daily.

A Great Idea

God’s fingerprints are all over you.

I praise You because You made me in an amazing and wonderful way. What You have done is wonderful. I know this very well. — Psalm 139:14

You are a great idea! I don’t mean you have great ideas — though I’m sure you do! I mean that you yourself are a great idea. How do I know that? Because you are God’s idea — and He only has great ideas.

When God sat down to create the very first man and woman, He said,

Let Us make human beings in Our image and likeness. — Genesis 1:26

God didn’t say, “Let us make oceans in our image” or “flowers in our likeness” or “giraffes in our likeness.” Nothing else in all of God’s creation is made in His likeness. Not plants, or weeds, or trees. Not elephants, anteaters, or even the cutest little puppy. Not stars, or mountains, or seas. Only people — including you and me.

What does it mean to be made in God’s likeness? It means you are made to look like Him. Maybe not on the outside. But on the inside, in your heart and mind and soul. Does that mean you’re perfect? Nope, nobody is. Except Jesus, of course. But it does mean that you take after Him. You get your kindness and your courage from Him. And when you love and help and forgive others, that’s when you look the most like Him.

In this world, people will sometimes see your mistakes as a reason to laugh at you. Some people might call you names. Others might decide not to be your friend because of where you live or the way you look. Don’t listen to them. Instead, remember this:

You are made in the image of God.

You’re a diamond, a precious jewel. You are so important to God, so loved by Him, that He sent His only Son to save you.

You can’t see them, but God’s fingerprints are all over you. So be sure to thank God today for His great idea of making you!

Remember

You are God’s great idea!

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Excerpted with permission from You Can Count on God by Max Lucado, copyright 2022 Max Lucado.

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Bonus item:

Two weeks ago I was listening to some older interview excerpts at Canadian Church Leader’s Podcast, and I came across several things recorded with Kim Moran when she was a pastor at a Pentecostal Church in Abbotsford BC. Kim is a friend of a friend, so I listened with interest.

One of the questions was about her church’s seven core values, and I transcribed them to present here without additional commentary. You can listen to the full 4-minutes at this link.

Diversity over Division

Great over Good

Servants over Stars

Cooperation over Competition

Extraordinary over Expected

Restoration over Rejection

Victors over Victims

What a great set of core values; agree?

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Also available, new from Max Lucado, the adult edition:

Not “My,” But “Our” – A Refection on the Lord’s Prayer

Our Father in heaven,
    may your name be kept holy. – Matthew 6:9

by Clarke Dixon

Prayer is a very personal thing. If we are being honest, the words “I,” “me,” and “my,” show up a lot in our prayers. Yet when Jesus teaches us to pray, we are to address “our” Father in heaven. Throughout the Lord’s prayer we also encounter “us,” and “our” a lot, but never “me,” nor “my.” This is important and reminds of three important facts as we learn to pray.

First, when we pray our Father, we are reminded that God is Someone we experience together. Faith is personal, but it is not something we create for ourselves, it is not something we possess and control or change for our own purposes.

If we began our prayer with something like “my personal cosmic being” we could then perhaps conjure God up as we desire. However, Jesus teaches us to pray “Our Father in heaven.” God is not someone we can change to suit our tastes. God has been experienced by a very large community of faith over a very long time.

If you ask my three boys what I am like, the facts they relate will need to fit with each other, plus fit with what you know about me. They might point to the obvious and say that I have blue eyes and and more grey hair today than yesterday. That would be true. Actually, my eyes were blue long before they came on the scene. We won’t mention my hair colour. You get the point though, that what is true about me is true about me whether you asked my boys or not. They cannot conjure me up, rather they experience me through my presence in their lives.

What is true about God was true about God long before you or I came on the scene. God is God, and that would be true even if there were no Church to speak of Him. God is not “my father, conjured up in my mind to suit my preference,” but “our father,” the one with whom humans have had a relationship for a long time. He is the one who revealed himself to his covenant people. He is the one who has revealed himself in Jesus. He is the one the community of faith has experienced and has spoken about. He is the one we meet in the Bible. He is our father, someone beyond us and experienced together by us.

When we pray “our father,” we are reminded that God is beyond us, experienced by a whole community of faith, and therefore can be discovered by us, but not conjured up.

Second, when we pray “our father in heaven” we are reminded that we are part of a large family which is part of an even larger family of faith. Faith is personal, but it is not practiced alone.

The local church is a family of believers and so we can properly refer to one another as brothers and sisters.

Within our own church family I feel rather badly for those who have come from a tradition where one is taught to enter the sanctuary with quietness in order to prepare for worship. That simply does not happen at Calvary as there is a lot of chit-chat which goes on before and after the service. But as I like to say, God loves a noisy church for it shows that relationships are happening. Yes, we gather to worship God, however, we gather to worship God together. As a family of believers we do not gather at the church, but as the church.

Of course we have an even bigger family to think about. The believers that would normally gather at the church down the street are also our brothers and sisters. As are the believers across the town. Even if we think they are weird. As are the believers across the world.

We are a huge family brought together not by our efforts at thinking alike, or even by liking each other, but by God loving us alike. We do not need to agree with our brothers and sisters to be family. We just need a relationship with our father. When you enter into relationship with God, you automatically enter into a family relationship with many people you might consider a little odd, or even a lot wrong.

When we pray “our father” we also think of the many generations of Christ followers which have gone before. God was their father too. Actually, God is still their father! The dead don’t cease to be God’s children!

Third, when we pray “our father in heaven” we are reminded that we share something fundamentally important with all people, for God is the Father of all humankind. Faith is personal, but it does not not cut us off from the public.

I once heard someone make a distinction between Genesis 3 and Genesis 1 Christians. If we are Genesis 3 Christians we tend to see people first-off as fallen, as having suffered the consequence of the Fall. We may not even see people at all, we may just see sinners. Genesis 1 Christians on the other hand see people, first-off as being created in the image of God, for relationship with God. In that sense all humans are children of God. Praying “our” father reminds us of that.

However, we may wonder about those times the Bible speaks of people as being alienated from God, or even enemies of God. Is that not evidence that not all people can be called “children of God,” that from the Christian perspective they cannot be considered part of one big family?

Imagine you can go back to the days of slavery in the Southern States. If you met a slave, would you say “slave is an appropriate term for you for that is what you are, this is where you belong,” or would you say “slave is a tragic term for you for you were created to be free. You were created for something better. Slave fits your current situation, but not your identity. You are not currently where you belong.” So too, with those who would live far from God. There are terms, like stranger, and enemy, which accurately describe their situation due to sin, but those terms are tragic. All people were created in the image of God, for relationship with God. He is calling them to come home. In his grace he is offering forgiveness and a new start through Jesus. They are his children, but children may end up living with zero relationship with their parents. This is tragic. Do our hearts break?

When we pray “our father” we are reminded that God is father to all humanity. We are reminded to have the same kind of love and longing for all people from all peoples as God has. Our hearts will break for those who are far, even as God’s does.

When we pray “our father” we are reminded that family dynamics are always changing. Every person we meet can potentially also desire to pray this prayer too someday. Those far from God can come home. Faith is personal, but it is not private. What we call “evangelism” is often seen as unethical in our day of privacy and individualism, however, evangelism is unavoidable when we pray “our father.” Our father desires that all His children come home. Given that we are family, we would love to see them come home too!

“I,” “me,” and “my” may show up a lot in our prayers and that is fine. Prayer is personal and we approach God as individuals. He relates to each of us on a personal and individual level. However, let us remember that Jesus taught us to pray addressing God as “our” father. Let that be a reminder that,

• God is a very real Someone that an entire faith community has experienced, and continues to experience.
• we are part of a big family, in fact a huge and complicated family of faith.
• We are part of an even bigger and even more complicated family, which includes even those who would rather not be in the family at all, whom God loves and is calling home.

May we ever be mindful that God is not just “my father,” but “our father.”

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This reflection comes from the “online worship expression” at Clarke’s church You can also watch the reflection here.)