Ephesians 2:10 NASB For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
Romans 16:3,7,9,12 NASB Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, [7] Greet Andronicus and Junias, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners, who are outstanding among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me. [9] Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ, and Stachys my beloved. [12] Greet Tryphaena and Tryphosa, workers in the Lord. Greet Persis the beloved, who has worked hard in the Lord.
According to Ephesians 2:10, we are God’s “masterpiece” or “perfect poem.” The word workmanship actually carries the full meaning of a poem that is someone’s masterpiece, which is what God considers us to be as new creations in Christ. At the Cross, collective fallen humanity was crucified with Christ, and a new humanity was created in His resurrection. Our union with the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus is how God made the New Creation or the New Self; therefore, we were created in Christ Jesus. The sad reality is that so few Christians understand what it means to be in Christ, and therefore, they really don’t understand what it means to be born again as new selves. If you don’t know who you are (who the new self is), then you don’t know how to live or what your potential and possibilities are. This is why the enemy has so fiercely tried to blind the mind of the church from really understanding their true identity, and sadly, he has been very successful. Unless you understand that being saved means to be “in Christ,” then you will never understand that if we are saved in Christ, WE ALSO WORK IN CHRIST. Notice those verses that I listed from Romans 16 that use the phrase working in Christ, or in the Lord. Paul doesn’t say that they worked for the Lord, and that is significant that he doesn’t put it that way; instead, he talks about “working in the Lord.” To be in Christ is to be placed into his life and into his story so that He can live his life and his script through our story, and in so doing, He redeems and sanctifies our own life journey by making it His. Therefore, to be a worker in the Lord, you are not working for him as much as He is working through and by you, which is gloriously liberating. To sincerely work hard for the Lord is frustrating and exhausting, but to work hard in the Lord is a yoke that is easy and a burden that is light because you aren’t doing your best for Him; instead, He is working, doing His best through you, by His illimitable power.
Ephesians 2:10 goes further and says that we are his “masterpiece” created in Christ Jesus for good works, which He prepared beforehand, that we might walk in them. Again, we worked created in Christ to work for God, but we were created in Christ that Christ might do His good works through us (instead of our dead works for him), and those good works that He does through us have been laid out, or prepared beforehand, and all we have to do is simply walk in them. Over the years, people have often asked me what the will of God is for them, and the best answer I can give them is simply to do the next thing in front of them, trusting Christ to do it through them by His power. It’s irrelevant whether the next thing in front of you to do looks like some extravagant world-changing act or simply serving someone that you’re connected to in some simple way; either one is part of the script that He has already written concerning the story, He particularly wants to tell through you, by His power. All we have to do is the next thing. The next thing is the work that He has prepared beforehand, and we simply have to walk in it, staying sensitive to the Holy Spirit, who will open our eyes to see things that we are to adjust to in the process. An example might be that you might need to go to the grocery store, and therefore, we can consider the work prepared beforehand that you are to walk in, and so in absolute and utter surrender, trusting Him that He is living His life through you in the grocery store, the Holy Spirit might make you aware that somebody standing next to you in the bread aisle is someone you need to approach with a word of knowledge, or prophecy, or to simply ask them is there anything you can pray for them about. This is how the Christian life works. Go about your daily life trusting that the next step in front of you, extraordinary or mundane, has eternal value because it is the work that He has prepared beforehand that He wants to live out through you, and all you have to do is to walk in it, trusting in His ability. I understand that sometimes, when we talk about knowing God’s will, we are talking about what specific assignment he might have me to do as a life vocation, or where I’m supposed to live, etc., but that is his responsibility to reveal all of that to you, and your responsibility will be just a walk in, but that will happen as you simply walk-in what you know to do in the next moment, and the next day. It could be some glorious opportunity to pray for hundreds to be healed or even thousands, or the work prepared beforehand could also be caring for an infirmed loved one, which requires moment-by-moment attention and sacrifice. The second scenario is just as glorious as the first, for we have died, and our life is hidden with Christ in God, and when Christ, who is our life, is manifested (moment by moment in whatever we are called to walk in), we will be manifested with him in glory. The mundane and the sensational carry an opportunity to experience glory as we simply walk in it one step at a time, yielded to and trusting Him.