The Artisan In You

Today we read Ecclesiastes 1-3, Psalm 45, and Ephesians 2.


I am not an artisan. I can hardly write my name, but I cannot make anything.  Now, don't misunderstand.  When I was a single man, just out on my own and needed a TV cart, I bought a pressed wood put-it-together version and snapped to it.  When I needed a home bookcase, Sauder here I come.  For our first microwave, I put together a high quality 'put-it-together.'  When the church I pastored added on, I put a couple of staff desks together.  When kids came along, my abilities grew in type of crafts and in construction time.  I could build castles, kitchens, and cars on a Christmas Eve night with just a screwdriver, an Allen wrench (provided by the company), a hammer (not always suggested but always used), and a set of instructions.  Like Solomon was for the Temple, so I am for children's toys and cheap furniture.  However, I am no artisan.  
When we attend street festivals and look at all the things that a jigsaw, some plywood, paint and creativity can build, I always look at Dawn and say, "I can build that.", if she looks interested in any of it. However, we both know.  This is not Sauder nor Mattel, so I will have to bow out and pay up.  I am no artisan.  

I will tell you what I can do though:  I can do the work of the Lord.  I sure can.  I am not always good at it, but that does not mean I don't have the ability or the innate giftedness to carry it out.   God has set me a part for His purposes and has crafted in me what He would have me to do.  And He is an artisan. 
Now, if you think that sounds a little puffed up, you will probably think what I am about to say is just flattery, but it isn't.  You are equipped, gifted, and able to carry out the work of Christ everyday of your life as well.  We all have different abilities and different levels at different things, but, if you are in Christ, the Holy Spirit that He breathed into you, is the Spirit that enables you to carry out His Work.  The Artisan is in you.  Working through you.  Ephesians tells me so.  Notice what else this promising passage says:
Ephesians 2.10- For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

The Work of God in us ought to mark our walk and everybody that come across our walk as we go.  

Artisan or not, if in Christ, you have one in you.  Walk in His Work today!