Works or Workmanship?

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:8-10)

I just finished reading "Lance Armstrong: Images of a Champion." It was interesting to read his own account of his first Tour de France win in 1999 and compare it with Johan Bruyneel's account in his book, "We Might as Well Win." Sometimes when you read two different people's accounts of the same events you will get very different stories. That wasn't the case in this instance. Lance agreed that it was Johan who first made him believe that he could win the Tour de France. Now, it's true that Lance could not have won even once, let alone seven times, without a huge effort on his part. Nevertheless, he may not have won at all, not even once, unless Johan had approached him to say, "I think you can win."

I thought of this when I read Ephesians 2 today. This chapter contains my favorite verses in the whole Bible, the verses I quoted above. In fact, a lot of Christians claim Ephesians 2:8-9 as their favorite Bible verse, but most don't include verse 10. Those first two verses remind us that we can never make ourselves right with God. The third verse gives God the credit for anything good we are able to accomplish.

This is a reminder we desperately need. In our sinfulness, we try to fool ourselves into thinking that we can earn God's favor by the good works that we do, as though, somehow they could offset, overcome or compensate for the sin in our lives. Because of our sinful pride we want the credit for those good deeds to go to us, as though we were responsible for them.

Our sinful pride tempts us to think that our situation is like Lance Armstrong's. His victory was initiated by the encouragement of Johan Bruyneel who convinced him that he could win. In a sense, you could say that Lance was Johan's "workmanship" because he prepared Lance in advance to win the Tour. But Lance knows very well how much training, effort, pain and suffering went into those victories on his part. Therefore, while some of the credit for Lance's victories should go to Johan, much of the praise is due to Lance for his own hard work.

The reality of our situation is completely different. In our situation all of the credit, praise and glory belongs to God and God alone. We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works that God planned for us to complete long ago, in fact, before the foundation of the world. The fact that we are able to do anything good is not because of ourselves. It's entirely because of God and His grace at work in us, as Paul said in Galatians 2:20: "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." Thus, if there is anything good in me, or if I am able to accomplish any good in my life, it is all because of Christ! The good in me is not my own, it is only because Christ lives in me and works through me.

I highly doubt that Lance Armstrong would ever give all the credit for his Tour de France wins to Johan Bruyneel. Some of it, yes. All of it, no. But that is exactly what we must do. We must give all the credit, all the glory and all the praise for every good work to God and God alone. God tells us that "all our righteous acts are like filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6) Only through faith in Christ do we become God's workmanship, new creations who are able to do the good works that God planned for eternity for us to accomplish to His glory. So thank God that you are saved by Him, not by your works. Thank GOd that it's His workmanship that matters, not your own works. On our own, we could never win, not even once.