Poetry in Motion
We are “heaven’s poetry.” Isn’t that a beautiful thought? But, what does that even mean? Most versions of this verse use the word, “workmanship,” and that conjures up a very tangible idea of a physical human creation, but this version brings us the idea that we are a unique artistic product, crafted by the mind of God.
For most people, going to a movie or reading a good story is a form of relaxation and entertainment. For me, however, it can prove dangerous. As far back I can remember, I have had a very vivid imagination. I’d watch an afternoon episode ofSuperman, and within five minutes, a hyperactive 5-year old had a towel tied around his neck and was leaping from the staircase of our family home in Richmond. I didn’t just watch Superman, I became Superman.
I think we all long to be part of something bigger than ourselves to have a part in an adventure that begins with “based on a true story.” We all love a good story, and it’s made even better if we are part of it. Stories find their way into every avenue of art; for example, the ballad (a story-telling song) is the most popular form of folk music and is still used frequently in popular music today. Good poetry gives voice to our inmost longings and speaks to the deepest parts of who we are and hope to be. This is the heart of Ephesians 2:10. When we consider the original version of the verse, the actual Greek word Paul uses for “workmanship” in Ephesians 2:10 is poiema, and if we were to translate it to English, we would use the word “poem.” So literally, we are God’s living poetry – we are poetry in motion.
We each are a verse, a stanza in God’s grand, cosmic, epic poem; the one supreme odyssey of grace and glory. We are invited to enter in and become a part of God’s story, to live it every day. But sometimes we live this life in a manner that is fictional and superficial, with our towel, capes and staircases a playing a part in a story of our own imagination. Being
part of God’s true story is so much better because it means that everything I do matters now; it means I am uniquely fashioned to participate in His work every day and be a living display of God’s boundless grace and love. Its means I am no longer defined by a dark past or stifled by an uncertain future. Remember you are in Christ; you are a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). God has prepared special things just for you to do today determined before time. He is ready to form and fashion you into a work of art. Hand him the pen -- let the Author help you become a beautiful, living masterpiece of his poetry in motion.
Dave Hook
Pastor of Music & Worship Arts
But God ...
I love a good mystery. Whether it be a novel, play or a movie, I’m in. I grew up reading The Hardy Boys and watching TV mysteries often. Recently my son and I saw the movie, Knives Out. Although it was primarily a tongue-in-cheek nod to serious mysteries of old, there nevertheless was an intriguing plot, not revealed until the very end of the movie. I loved the creativity.
As the Apostle Paul is unfolding the mystery of the good news, he begins chapter two by explaining how dreadful things are without Christ. We are spiritual corpses in death valley. We are without hope, dead in our trespasses and sins, trapped in bondage and simply put, lost.
Two simple words change everything. “But God” found in verse four of chapter two. Without those words, we would have been doomed to a fruitless, boring and meaningless life.
Paul goes on to say that it is because of two things: God’s boundless love and fathomless mercy. There is no end to either. Because of that he made a way out of death valley, namely by His great grace. We can easily run out of superlatives to describe the matchless dimensions of God’s love, grace and kindness toward us. We are given a gift. Nothing is earned.
In keeping with the unfolding mystery theme, I thought of a song written and sung by David Wilcox: “Show the Way.” Here is part of that song:
“If someone wrote a play, just to glorify what’s stronger than hate would they not arrange the stage to look as if the hero came too late? He’s almost in defeat, it’s looking like the evil side will win. So, on the edge of every seat from the moment that the whole thing begins. It is Love who mixed the mortar, and it’s Love who stacked the stones and it’s Love who made the stage here, though it looks like we’re alone. In this scene set in shadows like the night is here to stay. There is evil cast around us, but it’s Love who wrote the play. For in this darkness Love will show the way.”
Whether you are still lost in death valley, or at an uncertain crossroads, Jesus can show you the way.
Chip Whitman
Pastor of Care & Counseling
Chapter 1: And So It Begins
Now don’t you feel encouraged. Don’t you want to just sit and meditate on your sin nature? No? Well, neither do I.
Still every great story has a problem that needs to be solved — and ours is sin. As Romans 3:23 says, ... for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
But out of all that muck and mire of our sin, God transforms us. 1 John 1:8-9 says, If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Now this is where the story really gets good! As only Christ can do, he tills the dirt of our lives until it becomes fertile ground where he can grow the fruits of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Does God still need to prune our sin tendencies
so we can be a sweet, fruity aroma to others? As any Christian can attest, giving our lives to Christ doesn’t make us perfect. We still need to sit with God on a regular basis and ask what weeds need to be pulled from our lives so the fruit of the spirit can grow and flourish.
Today, spend some time thanking God for rescuing you from your sin nature and asking if there’s anything in your life that needs to be pruned. Here’s a sample prayer:
Lord, thank you for rescuing me from my sin nature. You have transformed me with the renewing of my mind (Romans 12:2). Forgive me when I fall back into my old sinful habits. Specifically, Lord, please forgive me for ___________. Empower me to live out the fruit of the spirit in my life every day.
Cyndie Claypool de Neve
Senior Creative Director
The Story of God
Some of my best memories from when my kids were young are of the many hours we spent reading good books together as a family. As they grew and we moved from picture books to longer and more complicated stories, they would often plead, “Oh, mom! Read one more chapter, please!” Good stories are like that, drawing us in, making us wish we were a part of them; and often hinting at the greatest story, the story of God and his great love.
In the beginning, God spoke the world into existence. It was beautiful and perfect in every way. Then he created Adam and Eve, his “image bearers” (Genesis 1:27) to reflect his likeness and to rule over the world he had made. In the garden Adam and Eve had all that they needed, God’s perfect love and provision. They were forbidden only from eating the fruit of one tree. God warned that if they ate it, they would die.
Tragically, instead of believing the one who gave them life, they believed the devil, the one who comes to kill, steal and destroy (John 10:10) and death entered the world. And with that death, came slavery to sin. All who followed Adam and Eve were like their parents. Instead of trusting God’s goodness and his love for them, they believed that there was something more, something better than God himself.
But our rebellion was not the end of the story. God promised that he would send a redeemer, one who would restore us to life and set us free to live for him and with him.
Through the lives and stories of the generations that followed, we see the thread of God’s relentless pursuit of a people who continually failed to trust him and to walk in obedience to him. But even in their failure, God was working out his plan.
Then, in the fullness of time, God sent our rescuer, the only one who could redeem us and set us free. Jesus, God’s own son, came and lived the perfect life we could never live, and then gave his life to purchase our freedom. He died and rose again, demonstrating his power over death.
In Ephesians 2:1-11, Paul points to the reality of our deadness without Christ. He reminds us of our inability to do anything to write a better story over our own lives. But God loved us so much, Paul says, that even though we were dead because of our sin, gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (vs. 4). Of all the stories ever told, there can never be another truer or better one than the one where God, by his grace rescues, redeems, restores and sets free all who will believe in him and trust in him.
Nicole Jiles
Director of Children’s Ministries
Shifting Gears
The first time someone rides a bike with multiple gears can be a pretty harrowing experience. A few years ago, my brother and I went mountain biking in a beautiful park just outside Seattle, WA. He was visiting for the week and it had been years since I had ridden a bike. We were riding and in the first short uphill section it felt like I was losing control of the bike. I was spinning the pedals and it didn’t feel like I was going anywhere! It was because I really wasn’t! I was pedaling as hard and as fast as I could and getting nowhere fast. Moments later, after catching up with my brother, he gently reminded me that I had to shift gears if I wanted to get power. Apparently, after some time away it was not “just like riding a bike.” After this revelation, my pedaling experience got much better. I wish I could say the same about using disc brakes. (I only went over the handlebars 3 times that day; thankfully, Washington moss is soft.)
What am I getting at here? Well, do you ever feel like you’re spinning your pedals in your walk with the Lord? We read over and over that the power that raised Christ from the dead is the same great power and blessing that’s bestowed upon us who believe, but sometimes we can’t “harness” that power until we shift gears a little. As I learned that day, the power and the gears to move were there the whole time, but my ability to harness the power was not.
Paul’s prayer is that the eyes of our hearts may be enlightened to live fully in that hope and power that God has. Clearly, the gears don’t change—the power is always there—but sometimes we don’t live in the power of resurrection. Paul prays we’d experience it. Did you know that God has power over sin and death? May our hearts be enlightened to that power for us who believe.
May our prayer be God will enlighten our hearts to take hold of the enormous power that God has made available to us so that we might live in freedom. Maybe it’s time for us to shift gears a little because the power is there!
Seth Redden
High School Pastor
Resurrection Power and Prayer
Is there a Christian in your life, someone younger than you, someone that you poured yourself into in the past, but now are separated from? This could be your own child or people from a ministry you were involved in years before, but time or distance has since pulled you apart. Someone that remains dear to you despite the distance. If you can relate to that scenario then you can relate to Paul’s heart for the people in Ephesus.
Paul helped build the church there from the ground up. He invested over two years in the people and the church there saying a tearful farewell to their leaders; recorded in Acts 20:36-38. Now years later Paul is thinking of those dear friends and writing to them and praying:
I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, (Eph. 1:18-20)
Paul’s prayer is specific. I’ve prayed that people in my life would know God and walk with God and serve God, but I think I’ve been missing something important. I’ve underlined the words that break through Paul’s extrapolations of God’s extravagance on our behalf in order to get to the heart of his plea. I pray that you may know the hope and power for us who believe. It is interesting that both the hope and the power of this prayer point to or are all about the resurrection. Hope = riches of his glorious inheritance. This is our eternal or resurrection life. Power = mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead. Paul wants God’s followers to really know about the power for us that raised Christ from the dead.
I feel like I already know about it, but If the people directly under Paul’s ministry need a prayer to know more and more the hope of eternal life and the power that raised Jesus from the dead, then I must be able to grow greatly in that too. Perhaps you can too and the people you are praying for.
Today, consider the eternal hope we have and the power of God that will make that happen in our lives and in the lives of our loved ones who also know him. Pray that we will have our eyes/minds focused on God’s power to resurrect more and more in the days ahead.
John Riley
Jr. High Pastor
As if for the First Time
For almost 20 years as a Youth Pastor, one of my favorite experi- ences was leading, mobilizing and sending students overseas or across the border with the goal of sharing the love of Jesus. Anyone who has ever stepped foot onto a mission field knows that stepping into a foreign culture, eating strange food, speak- ing unfamiliar languages, dealing with potentially uncomfortable customs, and then attempting to communicate anything mean- ingful can be a very stretching experience. Because of this, I took the interview process very seriously. Each student had to fill out a four-page application, get multiple references and endure a 30-minute interview! We don’t just send anyone to the mission field. We want to send our best! We wanted to send students who were committed to following Jesus and lived it out.
For this reason, I distinctly remember being completely shocked when I heard one of these students, while sharing her testimony many years after going on one of these trips, say, “I became a Christian in Albania.” I remember thinking to myself, “No you didn’t... I heard your testimony before you went... you were definitely a Christian before Albania.” And I was right! I had proof. Sure enough, she had checked the box on the application saying, “I know Jesus as my savior.” However, her words said something different. What happened here?
While I can’t fully speak to all the spiritual realities that were going on in this young woman’s heart, I think I might know what was going on, and I also think that it is the very thing that Paul prayed for the Ephesian church above. I think that this experience of being stretched, of being pushed out of her comfort zone, and of having to actually step out in faith, may have been so new to
her that it gave her a brand new way to see her relationship to Jesus. She believed so deeply and radically that it seemed as if it were for the first time. As if, what was known, finally became real to her. Maybe it was in Albania that (to paraphrase our verse), “the eyes of her heart were enlightened in order that she could know the hope to which she had already been called.”
My prayer for you, for me, and for us is that God would open the eyes of our hearts in this same way. Would he give us new opportunities to step out in faith, so that we too might believe as if for the first time.
Josh Rose
Pastor of Adult Ministries
Maturity Is More
My boys are getting ready to start another season of baseball. I have coached my oldest son’s team since he was 5 years old. I love coaching because I enjoy seeing the kids improve as baseball players. What I’ve noticed is that as their baseball skills improve, their love for the game of baseball increases as well. There are times as a coach when I push the kids beyond what they think they can accomplish, but it’s for their good and ultimately their enjoyment of the game.
When Paul prays for the church at Ephesus, he has the same thing in mind. He acknowledges the church is full of saints who are living and loving faithfully. In fact, they’ve been so effective that word about them has spread around the region (Ephesians 1:15). That’s impressive; but then Paul had the edacity to pray for more! It’s as though it’s never enough; they haven’t arrived yet; there’s another mountain to climb. He made the same statement in Philippians 3:12-15 when he wrote,
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you.
The Apostle Paul claims that he hasn’t arrived. There are ways he is still a work in progress. And then he claims that all those who are mature in their faith will embrace the same point of view. Maturity is understanding that there is still growth ahead of us. There is more.
There are only two parts of your body that do not stop growing: your nose and your ears. In fact, while the rest of our body shrinks as we get older, the nose and the ears grow. I think that’s a great picture of the life of a Jesus follower. We’re designed to grow until the day we die. There will always be more of Jesus to experience and embrace. And just like the kids I coach; our growth is designed to increase our joy as we walk with God and serve others.
Knowing that we are secure in Christ provides us with a foundation upon which to stand as we ask Jesus how he wants to grow us. We don’t grow so that he’ll love us; we are invited to grow in the soil of his love. Spend some time and read slowly through Paul’s prayer for more in Ephesians 1:17-19 and pray for your own growth in each of the areas he mentioned.
Ryan Paulson
Lead Pastor
Seeing Clearly
Have you ever been shocked when life’s circumstances seem overwhelming and then someone comes up and tells you they are praying for you? Somehow, they knew that you were in the middle of a trial, they knew life was hard at that moment, or somehow, they knew that you needed a little encouragement. When something like that happens it changes our outlook, it helps our heart, and it gives hope.
The church in Ephesus received a letter from Paul and he told them that he was praying for them. It wasn’t because of anything bad they did, but to encourage them. The cool thing he did was tell them how he was praying for them. The NLT explains his words well, I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called... He petitioned God for heart change even though they were following Jesus well, he wanted their hearts to be overwhelmed in Jesus’ light. Paul wanted their hearts to be full of understanding Jesus’ love. When our hearts see, then we understand a little better, and our hope is confident.
When our hearts see what Jesus has given us, we then become the kind of unified, collective, cosmic church that God intended. Life looks and feels different because we see how Jesus gives a new life and new identify. This newness Jesus gives makes our hope real and gives an eternal inheritance based on grace. Look at the rest of verse 18 ... so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance. As followers of Jesus you are holy because he changed your heart. This is what Paul wanted the church to understand- everything is different because of Jesus. We have gone from sinners to saints, from blind to seeing clearly. And because of all this we are now part of his cosmic body of Christ waiting for our inheritance to come.
May your hearts be flooded and overwhelmed with His light, so we can be confident in the hope He gives.
Jesus let me not to hold onto the things of this world, but to your truth, love and grace. Allow my heart to see your light no matter what today brings. Amen.
Jeremy Johnson
Director of Men’s Ministries
Receiving and Becoming the Inheritance
Unmarried and childless with no living relatives, Luis Carlos de Noronha Cabral de Camara left his great fortune to 70 people chosen at random out of a Lisbon phonebook. In the presence of two witnesses, and presumably his lawyer, he chose 70 people at random out of the phonebook to receive part of his fortune after his passing. You can imagine the shock of being on the other end of that phone call, that you are receiving an inheritance from a man you didn’t even know existed!
Many people dream of receiving a great inheritance from a long-lost great uncle, and it has been a major plot point in famous movies (shout out to personal childhood favorite, Mr. Deeds). Yet, this probably will never happen to you or to me.
In the Apostle Paul’s time, your inheritance was of utmost impor- tance. Most people followed in their parent’s footsteps and upward mobility was essentially non-existent. Receiving a large inheritance, historically, has always been greatly desired. Well, I have some good news for you. If you’re a follower of Jesus, you happen to be a child of the king and the recipient of a great inheritance!
We’ve received an abundantly wonderful inheritance, the grace of God and every spiritual blessing. All these things at our disposal from the moment we say “Yes” to the Lord. However, you’re not
just receiving. You’re also becoming God’s inheritance! Can you believe that Paul would say in v. 18, that his hope is that the believers in Ephesus would know the hope to which they have been called and what are the glorious riches of HIS inheritance in the saints.
Not only have you received and are receiving, you’re also part of and becoming part of God’s inheritance. God has chosen his people to become his inheritance, and it is with this knowledge that we operate. Do you ever have trouble believing that God is for you? I know that I do. I know that every spiritual blessing is available to me, that I’m called according to God’s purposes, and yet, sometimes that isn’t always the reality of where I live.
On the white board in my office is written this question, “Who am I becoming?” Well, I know who I am, God’s inheritance! But I get to live more into that day by day through the power of the inheri- tance of grace I have received and am always receiving. May we open our hearts to receive his grace and to become all that God desires for us.
Seth Redden
High School Pastor