But God

A Devotion on Ephesians 2:4-5

Photo by Joel Holland on Unsplash

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved. (Ephesians 2:4-5)

Two Beautiful Words

Two words. That’s all it takes for Paul to turn the whole thing around. Paul has just finished describing, with brutal honesty, what we were: dead in trespasses and sins, walking according to the prince of the power of the air, children of disobedience, sons of wrath. The portrait is not flattering. It’s not meant to be. It’s meant to be honest. And then, without apology and without easing us into it, the sentence turns on a dime: But God.

Two beautiful words. And everything changes.

Not “but we finally came around.” Not “but we began to make better choices.” But God. The movement is entirely from God’s side. The initiative is entirely his. The love is his. The mercy is his. The life that came to us in our deadness… his. This isn’t a passage about what we did for God. It’s a passage about what God did for us when we could do nothing at all.

Rich in Mercy, Great in Love

Notice how Paul describes God here. Not merely merciful, but rich in mercy. Not merely loving, but loving with a great love. These aren’t casual words. Paul is reaching for language that can carry the weight of what he wants to say, and even these words feel like they’re straining under the load.

Riches imply abundance, more than enough, overflowing, impossible to exhaust. God’s mercy isn’t a finite reserve he hands out carefully, cautiously watching the supply. It’s a wealth that doesn’t diminish. And his love isn’t the kind that depends on the worthiness of the one being loved, because we were dead when he loved us. We definitely weren’t improving. We weren’t showing potential. We were simply and thoroughly dead. And he loved us. Greatly. Richly. Without reservation and without condition.

This is where adoration begins. Not in an emotion we manufacture, but in a reality we finally see clearly.

Made Alive Together

The phrase Paul uses is astonishing: made us alive together with Christ. He didn’t merely resuscitate us. He didn’t simply patch us up and send us back. He made us alive together with the one who is Life himself. Thanks be to God! Our new life isn’t a separate thing reluctantly granted to us from a distance. It’s a shared life, a union, a togetherness that reaches into the very resurrection of Jesus and makes it ours. Can you believe it?

And all of it, (his coming, his cross, his resurrection, his ascension, the Spirit breathing life into our dead souls, even the faith with which we received it), is grace. Amazing grace indeed!

The hands that open to receive this mercy and love are themselves a gift. We didn’t muster the faith to reach for him. He made us alive so that we could. This isn’t a small thing. This is the most staggering kindness imaginable. He didn’t wait for us to come around. He came to us.

A Turn Toward Prayer

This is a passage to pray. Let Paul’s words become the vocabulary of your adoration. You might offer it to God something like this: But God, you were rich in mercy toward me. You loved me with a great love even when I was dead. And you made me alive. The point of the passage is adoration, and adoration doesn’t need to be complicated. It just needs to be real. We absolutely need to express it. And God is more than worthy of it.

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Prayer

Almighty and merciful Father, we can scarcely find words for what these two verses contain, and yet you’ve given us these words so that we might offer them back to you in praise. You are rich in mercy. You are great in love. And we were dead, and you made us alive. Not because we deserved it, not because we were reaching toward you, but because you are who you are, and you loved us before we had anything to offer.

We confess we have grown accustomed to this precious gift. Forgive us. Call us back, again and again, to the astonishment that’s entirely appropriate here, to the joy that’s the only fitting response to a love this great and a mercy this rich.

We worship you today not because we’ve earned the right to stand before you, but because you’ve made us alive together with Christ. And that’s everything.

In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

A Question

When you consider that God loved you at your worst, in your deadness, before you turned toward him at all, what does that do to the way you think about his love for you right now?

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A Final Thought

God made you alive when you had nothing to offer him. That hasn’t changed. Whatever you’re carrying today, you’re carrying it as someone God has already loved at his own great cost. Thanks be to God!

Soli Deo Gloria

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