Equipping God’s People to Stand Firm: EphesiansSample

The transforming power of salvation

“Let this be to you the mark of true gospel preaching - where Christ is everything, and the creature is nothing; where it is salvation all of grace, through the work of the Holy Spirit applying to the soul the precious blood of Jesus.” —Charles Spurgeon

Before Paul became a believer, he was a zealous persecutor of the early Christian church. In Acts 7:54–60, we read the account where Paul, known as Saul at the time, stood in the crowd, surrounded by the cloaks of the Jewish leaders. He listened as Stephen testified that Jesus Christ was the long awaited Messiah, and then watched him die because of his testimony. Later, many people were imprisoned and murdered because of Paul’s violent leadership. Paul met Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus, and his life was radically changed by that encounter. In the second chapter of his letter to the Ephesians, he writes about the transforming power of God’s salvation...

Look back at verse 4 and reflect on the words, “But God.” Those two words sum up the principle point of Paul’s message regarding our salvation and reveal how and why we are saved. We don’t save ourselves because of what we do. Grace means that God does the saving, not us. He isn’t obligated to save us, but because of his unfathomable love for us, he offers us the free gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. Paul emphasizes in this chapter that any gift we receive from God is one we don’t deserve. God is rich in mercy, and it is because of this mercy that he bestows gifts on us. These gifts, given by grace, produce forgiveness and new growth and guidance for our personal faith relationship with Christ.

Just as Paul’s life was radically transformed by the grace and good news of the gospel of Jesus,ours can be changed too! As a result of this study, pray and ask God if there are areas of your spiritual life that need to be more fully surrendered to God and Spirit-led. He wants you to fully experience personally the power of the gospel in your life.

“There is no way of salvation except through the cross of Christ.” —Billy Graham