site logo
  • About Us
    • Our Staff
    • Our History
    • News
  • Contact Us
  • FREE!
    • FREE Digital Mag
    • Weekly Downloads
    • Resources
  • Print Subscriptions
  • NEW! CC Churchlink
Homepage > 4 Box > Week 21 Application | God’s Handiwork
May 25, 2019  |  By David Faust

Week 21 Application | God’s Handiwork

Print

The longer I live, the more I understand Job’s lament that “man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward” (Job 5:7). Sadness flares up regularly, and I encounter a lot of it in my daily work. After more than 40 years in the ministry, I am accustomed to walking through seasons of grief with families who lose loved ones, but as I write this column, I’m in the midst of an unusually rough patch. This week a long-time minister friend of mine died, another friend lost his wife in a tragic accident, and a family close to us experienced the death of their 20-year-old grandson after a long, heroic bout with cancer. Yesterday I visited two elderly friends who are under hospice care and expect to die any day. In such times my emotions grow tired and my mind ponders questions common to us all: “God, why do you allow so much suffering? Why don’t you spare us from all this pain and sorrow?”

Yet, even when sadness bombards my soul, the shield of faith helps me “extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one” (Ephesians 6:16). Denying God’s existence and love wouldn’t make anything better. Without God, life’s hardships wouldn’t be lighter or easier to explain. With God there is hope.

Even while we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, God is at work through family members who, despite their tears, surround their dying loved ones with prayers, songs, pleasant memories, and words of respect and honor. God is at work through the comforting presence of the Holy Spirit and the reassuring promises of Scripture. God is at work through the compassionate care of the church, and through kind and skillful hospital employees, hospice nurses, chaplains, and funeral directors. 

God was at work when his own beloved Son suffered the anguish of Gethsemane and the misery of Calvary. He was at work when Jesus arose on the third day, victorious over sin and death. Today, God remains at work through the gospel message, reversing our spiritual demise and making us alive with Christ (Ephesians 2:5, 6). “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith” (v. 8).

God is at work in us. “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works” (v. 10). The word translated “handiwork” in this verse is the Greek poiema from which we derive our word “poem.” It means a masterpiece, something artfully produced like a fine statue, a well-designed building, or a beautiful painting or song. The ancient historian Herodotus used poiema to describe the work of a craftsman constructing a crown. In the Greek translation of Psalm 143:5, poiema refers to God’s remarkable works of creation and redemption.

In the process of creating something beautiful, an artist makes a mess. There will be some sawdust, paint splatters, or granite chips on the floor. Why should we be surprised if it’s a messy process for us to become God’s handiwork? Without the Lord, we would have the mess without any hope of seeing the finished product, but as believers “we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him” (Romans 8:28). Even on the days when sadness flares up like sparks from a fire, God is at work.

David Faust serves as the Associate Minister at East 91st Street Christian Church in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Lesson study ©2018, Christian Standard Media. Print and digital subscribers are permitted to make one print copy per week of lesson material for personal use. Scripture quotations are from the New International Version, ©2011, unless otherwise indicated.

Previous StoryWeek 21
Study Questions
Next StoryWeek 21 Study |
Alive in Him

Comments: no replies

Join in: leave your comment Cancel Reply

(will not be shared)

Search

Helpful Resources

Subscribe to our Newsletter

Get the latest news, plus links to new posts at LookoutMag.com directly to your inbox every month.





Christian Standard Media

We provide true-to-the-Bible resources that inspire, educate, and motivate people to a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. For 150 years we have been serving the Christian community with products that have but one purpose: bringing the Bible to life.

Contact

16965 Pine Lane, Suite 202
Parker, CO 80134
800-543-1353
Lookout@christianstandardmedia.com

[contact-form-7 id=”24009″ title=”Subscribe for Free!_copy”]

Magazine WordPress Theme made by ThemeFuse