‘We are his workmanship.’ You could simplify that translation and simply say, we are his products.
Are we really new? Have we been given these things afresh? Or have we returned once again to the lower nature within us? We were given new minds but we plan worldly things, selfish things, material things too much. We were given new hearts, with affections and desires for the high and the holy and the pure, and yet we have gone back perhaps to over loving the base things. And we have been given new will but we do not act with determination. And we are his product created, new created, in Christ Jesus unto good works. What is my daily aim? Do I pray every day to manifest Christian virtues? Do I re-construct every day my determination to live for him and to deal with sin? Do I every day bring an evening account before God, to search my heart and to confess my sin? Have I carried out my spiritual duties? How about my reactions to provocation or to challenge or to difficulty? And then in the life of righteousness, have I been concerned about each department of life – thoughts, words and deeds? My thinking – is it self-centred? My words – what are they like? Reactive words particularly? And my acts – what do I do to express kindness and helpfulness? It must not just be in the mind. Then there is another thing perhaps to look at. What has flowed out of me this passing day? What have I given in counsel, in word, in testimony, in help? What has flowed out of me? And then what have I ingested? Television, entertainment, rubbish? What has entered into me? These are different ways of examining our hearts.
But equally it is very encouraging language because though I fall and though I sin, if my heart is exercised and challenged and my conscience is moved and I am conscientious and striving, I can say, ‘We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained [or prepared] that we should walk in them.’ Something has happened to me, something very profound and this governs my life, my walk before God.