God's Poem

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”—Ephesians 2:10

God is the ultimate poet—better than Shakespeare, Donne, Chaucer, Dickinson and Homer put together. There is no meter, rhyme, sonnet or verse that could ever come close to communicating how awesome He really is and what He has done on our behalf.

While man’s poetry is relegated to paper, God’s poetry is displayed all over creation. As King David, himself a poet, wrote,

“The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world”—Psalm 19:1-4.

God’s power and glory are displayed all across creation. From the majestic mountains, to the sandy deserts, to the vast seas, and dense forests—every tribe, tongue and nation can understand His power and majesty. Perhaps the greatest poem of which God is the author is found in us. We are God’s text; His grace and mercy are written upon our hearts for the entire world to read.

In our passage for today, Paul writes that “we are His workmanship.” The word “workmanship” is from the Greek word “poema,” that is, poem. We are God’s poem, created to be in Christ Jesus for the express purpose to do good works, which means that God created us to show His all-surpassing worth in our lives by our righteous living and acts of righteousness. We are His poem, His love written on the palm of His hands with the ink of His life-giving blood. Since we are poems, we need to make sure that we can be read—doing the works of righteousness through which men and women can see Him. If we fail to do the works that He has created us to do, then we are like poems never put on display, put away on the shelf, away from those who want to read and know the great poet of love who woos our souls through His vast immeasurable love.

May God enable us to be poems of His love, on display for the world to see, read by all of those with whom we come into contact, so that they might marvel and themselves become God’s poem of life and salvation, ready to be read by a lost and dying world. Amen.