Saturday, March 20, 2010

God's Masterpieces

What comes to mind when you think of the word “masterpiece”? For me I think of works such as Michelangelo’s perfectly and smoothly chiseled David, or his tumultuous and energetic Sistine Chapel. I long to peer into the depths of the eyes of Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. I recall the experience of standing inches from a Seurat, making nothing of the myriad of dots and colors and then gazing in amazement as I backed away and they merged to become fantastic snapshots of 19th century life. Water lilies drift lazily in peaceful streams under stone bridges in the countryside as captured by Monet’s brushstrokes and I long to step into the tranquility of those canvasses. Masters, each of these men, creating works the likes of which have never been reproduced and likely never will. Each work worth extraordinary sums for the unique nature in which they were created or the hand that created them – deemed priceless.


So what does it mean when God calls us his masterpiece? Is the word so diluted by paintings and sculptures and works of men that will ultimately fail the test of eternity that a timeless God who labels us so loses relevance? Consider the expanse of the universe and the images pulled from deep space, the ones that astronomers indicate must be billions of years old because the light has traveled so far to reach us. Simply consider the fact that there IS a universe so vast, and we haven’t even seen the edges of it. We’ve scarcely adequately studied our own solar system, even the depths of our own oceans.


God doesn’t say the heavens and the cosmos are his best work; he doesn’t call the creation in which we are placed the culmination of his abilities. He doesn’t even call the very Heaven in which he resides the pinnacle of creative talents. He calls you and me his masterpiece. According to Ephesians 2:10, we are created for more than just to be placed on a shelf and admired. We are created for good works. I find it encouraging that God has a plan of good works for my life. That means that he has a plan. That means that I don’t have to struggle to find myself, find my plan, find what my life is supposed to be about. I simply follow his leading. And this plan isn’t just being thought up as we walk through this life. “Well, he did this so we’d better compensate by doing this”. God had my life mapped out before I existed, had the impact of my life on this earth figured out before I took one step onto this soil. God knew who I would talk to, who I would witness to, who would watch my life, who would be affected by it, who I would change, who would hurt me, who would be hurt by me, and who I would love from my first breath to my last. He has the whole thing mapped.


Do I throw my hands up and say, “well if that’s the case then I have no choice and so I’ll just do what I want”? NO!   God told the nation of Israel "before you is blessing and cursing, life and death, choose life".  You DO have the choice.  Next to giving up his Son, it's the greatest sacrifice God gave, to allow his beloved creation the freedom to turn away from him if they so choose.  I believe every choice, every decision is a fork in the road and compounded these create millions and even billions of end results and I believe that I serve a God who is omniscient and big enough to know the end from the beginning of every single one of those paths. I believe God has a plan and if I follow him and pursue him as he desires me to, then I will ultimately find myself in the flow and center of that plan. My God is all powerful, powerful enough to wipe away my sin and past mistakes, he is all knowing, knowing every end from every beginning and what is best for me, and he is omnipresent, everywhere and always with me. God has prepared the good works for us, all we have to do is step into them, because we are his masterpieces and he cherishes every single one of us because he created us for just this reason.


1 comment:

  1. Amen and well written brother! This post is encouraging and motivating. Thanks for sharing it.

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