Bible Reading for July 23 – Ephesians 2:1-22

Have you ever wondered if God could possibly love you? Maybe you’re living with the shame of having hurt yourself or others in the past. Maybe you find yourself attracted to all sorts of things or people that only cause you more pain. Maybe when you look in the mirror, all you see is brokenness. And maybe you don’t have any hope that things can possibly get better.

That’s the way many Gentiles felt in the days when Paul was writing. They had been brought up to worship all sorts of false gods, and that meant engaging in all sorts of shameful and selfish practices. But when they heard about the God of the Jews, they were told that their past deeds – indeed their very bodies were unclean, unacceptable in the sight of God. That’s what Paul means when he says in verse 12 that they had no hope – they were without God in the world.

But that’s why Jesus Christ is such good news for everyone. For by dying on the cross, He paid the death penalty that all our sins deserve. By offering Himself as a perfect sacrifice, Jesus made it possible for all those who trust in Him to have peace with God and access to the Father, no matter how broken we may be, no matter how ashamed we are of what we have done. Because of the work of Christ, Paul can say in verse 19 that we don’t have to feel like strangers and aliens anymore – all who trust in Him are part of God’s household, part of God’s family.

And that also means that all those cultural differences that mean so much to us just don’t matter anymore. For Jesus didn’t just die for the sins of the Jews, but of the Gentiles too. And because of this, any hostility we might feel for any other category of people is simply destroyed. Instead, people from every tribe and tongue and nation are joined together into one family of faith, one holy temple in which God Himself lives.

So believe the good news: Jesus died for sinners just like you, so that you might belong to Him, so that you might become one of His family. So today, let us draw close to Him and to all His people, for if we trust Him, that’s where we belong.

Ephesians 2:1-22 (ESV)

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins
2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience–
3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,
5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ– by grace you have been saved–
6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands–
12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility
15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace,
16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
17 And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.
18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.
19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,
20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone,
21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.