Note: This article appeared in the March 4, 2020, edition of the Webb Weekly. As you well know, the COVID shutdown hit the very next week. My articles tend to be summaries of the sermons I preach at church, and this article was the supposed to be the first in a 12-week series. Well, that didn’t happen. Now I’ve decided it’s time to take another run at it, so this is a restart. I encourage you to join us for this series inspired by Erick Rees’s book entitled, SHAPE: Finding and Fulfilling Your Unique Purpose for Life, and by this incredible verse:

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. Ephesians 2:10 NLT

A Masterpiece? Really?

Receiving Scriptural truth isn’t always easy. We sometimes find ourselves arguing with God—and this is one of those times. Let’s be honest, most of us don’t look in the mirror and think to ourselves, now there’s a masterpiece! In fact, we think just the opposite. We have a difficult time seeing the good because we are so distracted by imperfections and limitations.

The main problem lies in our inclination to measure ourselves against others. In comparison to them, we see ourselves as less than.

This is a fundamental problem—and one that must be overcome. God’s Word declares that you are a masterpiece. If you disagree, then you are rejecting a truth found in God’s Word. That disobedience is causing a ripple-effect of poor choices resulting in untapped potential and ongoing negative life-patterns generated by an incorrect view of self—and of God. Instead of being an overcomer, you have chosen to be a victim. My friends, this breaks the heart of God.

The only way to overcome is to receive the truth that you are indeed a masterpiece intentionally designed by God to serve eternal and holy purposes. To do any less is to commit arrogant sin against God. Paul confronted this arrogance when he wrote, “But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?” Romans 9:20-21.

When we reject God’s truth, we also reject His sovereignty. That may sound harsh, but we cannot gain a correct view of self until we are willing to fully accept the sovereignty of God and His holy design. When we reject His sovereign design, we also reject our unique and holy purposes. You may not like hearing it – but doing so is sin. Listen, you are a masterpiece.

In the gospel of John, chapter 9, we read about a very interesting interaction that took place between Jesus and His disciples, “As he (Jesus) went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

The disciples assumed that a baby being born blind had to be the result of something sinister. After all, who could ever imagine that God would design blindness into a masterpiece? Surely someone was to blame for this terribly unfair outcome.

The disciples were making the same basic mistake we make. We assume that anything less than perfect is an error – or the result of sin and chaos. Our thoughts reveal our inability to accept the sovereignty of God. In a brief statement, Jesus revealed their lack of faith, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

Jesus then healed the man – and over 2,000 years later, we’re still talking about it. The redemptive value of that man’s suffering, and the suffering of his parents, far outweighed their momentary grief and pain. God new exactly what He was doing. In blindness, He created a masterpiece that revealed the healing power of Jesus.

And what about you? Is it possible that the very thing you hate about yourself is actually a masterful stroke of color splashed into the painting of your life to reveal the majesty of God? Do you think that God doesn’t know you, or that He has somehow forgotten you? Such thoughts are sin. They reject the sovereignty of God and reveal a basic distrust. Listen, you are a masterpiece designed by your holy Creator to reveal majesty and redemption and hope. The day you accept that truth and begin living as God’s masterpiece is the day you become an overcomer!

“So we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good time, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There’s far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can’t see now will last forever.” I Corinthians 4:17-18 MSG