5/7/20 I Devotion

Ephesians 4:1-16

Therefore, as a prisoner for the Lord, I encourage you to live as people worthy of the call you received from God. 2 Conduct yourselves with all humility, gentleness, and patience. Accept each other with love, 3 and make an effort to preserve the unity of the Spirit with the peace that ties you together. 4 You are one body and one spirit, just as God also called you in one hope. 5 There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 and one God and Father of all, who is over all, through all, and in all. 7 God has given his grace to each one of us measured out by the gift that is given by Christ. 8 That’s why scripture says, When he climbed up to the heights, he captured prisoners, and he gave gifts to people. 9 What does the phrase “he climbed up” mean if it doesn’t mean that he had first gone down into the lower regions, the earth? 10 The one who went down is the same one who climbed up above all the heavens so that he might fill everything. 11 He gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers. 12 His purpose was to equip God’s people for the work of serving and building up the body of Christ 13 until we all reach the unity of faith and knowledge of God’s Son. God’s goal is for us to become mature adults—to be fully grown, measured by the standard of the fullness of Christ. 14 As a result, we aren’t supposed to be infants any longer who can be tossed and blown around by every wind that comes from teaching with deceitful scheming and the tricks people play to deliberately mislead others. 15 Instead, by speaking the truth with love, let’s grow in every way into Christ, 16 who is the head. The whole body grows from him, as it is joined and held together by all the supporting ligaments. The body makes itself grow in that it builds itself up with love as each one does its part.

Devotion

When I worked as a counselor, I did a lot of work with people helping them realize their worth. In a culture where self-esteem is highly prized and a resource for making it in a competitive world, we are constantly bombarded with messages of what and who we are suppose to be. We are told that we are not smart enough, tall enough, thin enough, strong enough, that we don’t have enough or do enough. There are A LOT of people who struggle with not feeling like they are enough. Some of you out there know exactly what I’m talking about. Our minds can get trapped in self-doubt and we start to believe the lies the world tells us. We start to believe the lies that we tell ourselves. 
 
But how do I know they are lies? Because God calls.  
 
“Therefore, as a prisoner for the Lord, I encourage you to live as people worthy of the call you received from God.”
 
How do we live a life worthy of God’s calling if we don’t feel good enough? We first have to realize that God called us. This is the word for us today in Ephesians Chapter 4 verse 1. If you look and read this passage carefully you will see that in the midst of being encouraged to live a life that is worthy… there is an assumption that you are already called...already set apart by God. You see, God believes you’re good enough…God called you. 
 
God knows us, and calls us anyway. We are called because God believes in us regardless of what we believe about ourselves. In unity with Christ, we are part of building up his body in the world. We are his hands and feet. Christ chooses us, not because of our accomplishments or by our perfection or imperfection, but according to his grace. Through this grace, we grow and participate in possibilities beyond what we can ask or imagine. We, ordinary people, become a divine channel of healing, ministry with the poor, justice and peace. You are worthy. You are good enough. You are called by God. We have to be people and a church who believe that. If we are going to live as people worthy of the call received by God, we have to believe that. 

Amber Lea Gray, Associate Pastor