This past summer I had the pleasure of hiking in Glacier National Park in northern Montana. Mountains jutting out of mountains. Glacier-fed emerald lakes tucked away in glacier-carved basins. Brightly colored wildflowers and native bear grass providing “snap-my-picture” foregrounds to panoramic mountain-range backdrops. A mama grizzly and her two cubs showing off for gawking hikers, a safe distance away. Literally every step was a vista of surprise.

What a gift to be surrounded by Genesis 1 creativity! It’s inspiring. It’s worshipful, and it’s not even God’s best work. He saved that level of craftsmanship for us.

Scripture Text
While the entire Word of God is one vista after another, each showing God’s creative work, you might say that Ephesians 2 gives us one of the best views. As you read the passage below, note when God’s creativity kicks in. Then keep track of all God does, especially as you are described.

Ephesians 2:1-10 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the Spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions— it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Think About It
When you see what God did, along with how we’re described in this passage, you see that He made us alive, raised us up and seated us with Christ in the heavenly realms. Why did He do all this? He is love and mercy. He can’t help Himself, but it doesn’t stop there. He displays us for all of creation to see His grace, which came by way of His Son. God’s creative work in Genesis 1 gave us the mountains and lakes out of the formless, empty, dark earth. His creative work in Ephesians 2 gave us life and a heavenly seat where God wants us to sit and, quite simply, look pretty for “the coming ages.”

Apply It
All of our teens, on any given day, could use the same words to describe themselves as Genesis 1 used to describe the world before God’s creative power: formless, empty, dark. I’ve seen how easily those descriptions can become their identity and shape their behavior, but those descriptions are not the truth. Our teens need to be reminded of it constantly.

In fact, here’s an idea: Invite your students to find something beautiful in creation—a wildflower, snowfall, the beach, a mountain—and have them recite a paraphrase of Ephesians 2:

I am God’s best work. I was created to display God’s grace and show off His Son. God has something for me to do.

Glacier-fed lakes and snow-capped peaks are breathtaking, but the truth is we are God’s best work.