GOD'S WORK OF ART

“For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”  (Ephesians 2:10 NLT)

One of the great works of art in the Western world is Michelangelo's Pietà, a marble statue of an anguished Mary holding the crucified Christ. Some years ago a fanatic nationalist rushed upon the masterpiece and began smashing it with a sledgehammer. Although the damage was significant, Vatican artists were able to restore the statue to near-perfect condition.

You were created to be a masterpiece of God. Paul writes, "For we are God's poiēma" -- a word that can mean God's "workmanship," or even God's "work of art." God made you to know oneness with Him and with other human beings. God made you to be co-regent with Him -- to "fill the earth and subdue it," to "have dominion" over creation under His reign and with His help. It is the goodness of God's work in creating us that makes our fallenness so tragic. This is why my disappointment in myself runs so deep.

But God is determined to overcome the defacing of His image in us. His plan is not simply to repair most of our brokenness. He wants to make us new creatures. So the story of the human race is not just one of universal disappointment, but one of inextinguishable hope.

-- John Ortberg in “The Life You've Always Wanted”

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