Our Position in Christ – The Crowning Achievement of God’s Grace – Part 4

Some of the crowning achievements of men are traveling to the moon, mastering flight, creating the wheel, creating photography, the establishment of democracy, the printing press and more of course.

But what is God’s crowning achievement? Is it not us, human beings? We see in creation that God created all of the natural world first and left us for last: His crowning achievement. We may be tempted to stop there. But there is more. We are His true crowning achievement when we are found IN Christ. Find yourself in this verse:

“to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.” (Eph 1:6)

That beautiful string of words “praise of the glory” is found 3 times in the book of Ephesians. But in this case Paul goes even further “praise of the glory of His grace.” In other words we – me and you – are the crowing achievement of His grace.

Do you know what grace means? It is the Greek word charis and means “unmerited favor, that which affords joy, pleasure, delight.” Do we earn grace by being good Christians? No, grace is unmerited, unearned and freely given.

But here we see grace doing a great work with God’s glory. His grace, when properly received and understood, makes us into His crowning achievement. The last part of the above verse says “by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.” Let me be clear: the only way to be accepted by God is to accept His Son Jesus and what he did on the cross. Oh and by the way, the Greek word for “accepted” is charitoō, a derivative of charis – grace. So we see it is grace upon grace.

Some humans may be stoic regarding their crowning achievements. Not God. The verse says He has made us accepted in the “Beloved.” Beloved is a romantic word, full of God’s affection. Here it is actually agapaō, from agape. The Father deligts in us because of what His son did for us. That grace extends to us, causing us to be formed into “the praise of the glory of His grace.”

Father, we thank you for Your grace. Thank you for Your Son Jesus and that we are accepted in the Beloved. I ask you to remove all lies that contradict the above truth that You delight in me. I am, in Christ, Your crowning achievement. I am going to be even so bold to say that out loud even now “God, I am Your Crowing Achievement in Christ.” In Jesus’ wonderful name. Amen.