I watched the Broncos defeat the Ravens last night in the first game of a new NFL season. I have been a Broncos fan for years and watched with interest the experiment with Tim Tebow. He still can’t seem to find a place in the league and I hope that changes because I think he is good for the game. His glare barrier is the topic though.
There is a grace by which we are saved. “For it is by grace (charis) that you are saved through faith, and this not from yourselves, it is a gift of God—not by works, so that no one may boast” (Eph 2:8–9).
There is also the grace for which we are saved. “For we are God’s masterpiece, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared in advance for us to walk in” (Eph 2:10).
I have been spending a lot of time thinking about a great article in Missio Dei: A Journal of Missional Theology and Praxis 4, vol. 1 (February 2013) written by P. Kent Smith. The author is talking about the economy of God and how it is God’s intention to show his wisdom through the church, the gathered community of believers. So mission work is intended to ultimately create a worshipping community.
The author talks about God’s “self-investment into each of his people as individuals and in the community called the “body of Christ.” His predetermined good works that we are to do are cultivated in the church based upon the foundation of the apostles. Jesus the great missionary preached peace to those close by and to those far off in order that we would be –
“no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, 22 in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.” Ephesians 2
