Michaelangelo was once asked what he was doing while he chipped away at a shapeless rock. His reply was “I am liberating an angel from this stone”. If we think about it long enough, we will come to understand that Father God is doing the exact same thing in us.
Eph. 2:10 states that “we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them”(NKJ). I love the way these two translations say it. “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the things he planned for us long ago” (New Living Testament). “We have become poetry, a recreated people that will fulfill the destiny that he has given us. For we are joined to Jesus, the anointed one. Even before we were born, God planned in advance, our destiny and the good works we would do to fulfill it”. ( The Passion Translation)
The Greek word here for workmanship is Poiema. It means ” That which has been made, the work of God as creator. J.B. Phillips said this. “Each of our lives is a canvas on which the master is producing a work of art that will fill the everlasting ages with praise.” What a powerful image of the work of Christ in us. We are in the hands of the master sculptor who created the universe out of nothing.
God put forth his most powerful force and creative effort to make you new. Once He was finished, you became his masterpiece, skillfully created in Christ Jesus. All that he is, he put into you. There’s nothing cheap or inferior about you at all. All of God’s creative, artistic, intelligent genius went into your creation. God put forth all, I said ALL, his effort and creative power to marvelously fashion and create you in Christ Jesus. Because the word Poiema is used here, it unmistakenly means that God wielded his greatest and most creative power when you were born again. You weren’t just mildly or haphazardly saved,” rather God took us in his hands and creatively made us new in Jesus as he released his most powerful, creative forces to put himself in us, a glorious work of art that would be worthy to bear his name. Paul is saying that the redeemed saint of God is his greatest masterpiece, his greatest achievement. Each one unique, each one specially created to be able to accomplish their assignment flawlessly. He left nothing to chance, no defects, no deficiencies, we are perfectly created and suited for our heavenly assignment.
The biggest issue before us is that we don’t see or believe this to the degree that we should. We may give mental assent to the fact, but in reality, we see the faults, the flaws, the inconsistencies and the shortcomings that rise up as giants and obstacles in our lives. I know that I have a tendency to compare my giftings and callings to others. Their’s look tremendous, mine, not so much. When I do that, what I’m really doing is demeaning and degrading the work and effort God has put into me. Their gifts and calling are suited to accomplish their assignment, not mine. God has fitted me perfectly and supplied me with the gifts that will accomplish my assignment and my assignment alone.
We must stop looking at what we see in the natural and begin to see what God sees in the supernatural. We must allow God to liberate the angel in the stone. The assignment is there, already determined, waiting for us. All we have to do is be willing to be led into them. God knows what we are fitted for better than we do. The one who painted the canvas knows better than we do, what he wants to accomplish, he knows better than anyone what we are fitted for. We would rather try putting a round peg in a square hole, he has no interest in, or time to waste doing so. We are meant to be a visual aid to a hope seeking world, we are exhibits under the gaze of a lost world, we are an advertisement of all that the grace of God can do in the lives of ordinary people.
I’ll finish with this. God did not save us to sequester us within the walls of the church. God saved us, made us his greatest masterpiece to display us to the world. He redeemed us to show others what he can do for them. If you are saved, you are God’s testimony to the world that he saves the worst of the worst. Let the world see the great masterpiece. Let them see what he created in you, for you and with you.
If you think you are a boring piece of prose, an incomplete work of art, you don’t see things as they really are. You are afflicted with a sin induced cataract in the eye of the heart, but it is God’s intention and delight to heal your sight. (Eph 1:18-21)
