Week 22
Rich in Mercy
Ephesians 2:1–10
“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us…”
Ephesians 2:1–10 (NKJV)
Paul names the human condition without softening it: dead in trespasses, following the age, enslaved to disordered desire, and unable to generate spiritual life.
Then two words interrupt the ruin: ‘But God.’ Salvation begins not with human improvement but with the character and action of the One who is rich in mercy.
His love is great not because its objects were spiritually attractive, but because its source is God. Mercy moves toward people who can offer no leverage for rescue.
God makes us alive with Christ, raises us, and seats us with Him. Union with Jesus brings believers into a life and future entirely beyond what death could produce.
Grace will be displayed in coming ages as the immeasurable kindness of God. The redeemed church becomes living evidence that divine generosity cannot be exhausted.
Salvation is gift, not works, so boasting is excluded. Even faith is an empty hand receiving what Christ has accomplished.
Yet grace creates good works. We are God’s workmanship, remade in Christ for paths He prepared—not earning life through service, but expressing the life already given.
Let ‘But God’ speak over every hopeless verdict. Receive mercy without bargaining, rise into the life of Christ, and walk gratefully in the good placed before you.
In Conversation with A. W. Tozer
Tozer distinguished mercy as God’s goodness confronting misery and guilt, and grace as favor freely bestowed where no merit can claim it.
Ephesians 2 makes both visible in Christ. The spiritually dead contribute nothing to resurrection; God’s rich mercy creates life and then forms it for good works.
A Prayer
Holy God,
God rich in mercy, I confess that I could not make myself alive or deserve Your welcome.
Thank You for loving, raising, and seating me with Christ by grace. Silence every boast and every hopeless verdict.
Shape Your workmanship through the good works You prepared, so my life may display the immeasurable kindness of Jesus. Amen.
Dwell This Week with God
Awaken to His presence.
Return often to Ephesians 2:1–10. Read without hurry, and allow the truth of who God is to become larger than every lesser concern.