Following the Plan, Part 3 (and final--maybe)

I am taking NT 2 this semester, the final semester of my master's degree!! I am reading a really fabulous book on Paul by F.F. Bruce -- it's actually a text required by the professor but I really like it. Anyway, as I have been thinking about my research paper (not starting on it, mind you, because mid-terms are in the next couple of weeks) I have been looking over several passages. I think I am going to do an exegesis of a passage in Galatians but was reading a related passage from Ephesians the other day. Check out Eph. 2:8-10:

"For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourself, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them."

I could not help thinking about the stories of both Joshua and Gideon that we recently studied in our Life Group and that have been the subject of recent posts. Both were promised victory in battle and both received battle plans that would leave no room for boasting on their parts. Marching, shouting, blowing trumpets, smashing pitchers, are not common military practices. That our salvation is just like that blows me away. Believing and moving forward -- not anything that we can accomplish on our own, lest we boast in ourselves. All boasting is reserved for the One who spoke the world into existence. It is His name that is to be proclaimed and made famous, not ours.

As I come to the end of my years of preparation and God has begun to reveal what's next for me I see this massive project ahead of me. Johnny and I had a meeting this week and though the amount of work required is staggering, I feel rather calm about it. I don't know how it's going to work out but I feel confident. Strange, for me. I am the worrier, the doubter. This I know for sure, I don't want to miss what's ahead for anything. I want to be in the place where there is not one speck, one breath, one ounce of boasting in me...just walking in those good works that were prepared for me.

Serving the King,

Jeanette