God's Trophies

 

Thirty years ago, my nephew, Wayne, bought a starter house on Connell Street in East Ridge, Tennessee.  He was a pretty good handyman and fixed it up, selling it a few years later for a profit.  When Wayne moved into the house, he went up into the crawl-space attic to do some work.  And there he found about thirty trophies left there by the previous owner from years ago.  He brought them down and put them on the carport intending to throw them away.  I grabbed them up and told him that I could use them.  I gave them to my sister who has the bus ministry at our church.  She handed out the trophies to the kids on the church bus.  They all went home on Sunday with a trophy.  They didn’t care that the trophies had been given to someone else, they were just trophies.  They went home and showed them off!  Hey, did you know that we are God’s trophies?  God said in Ephesians 1:6 that we are “… to the praise of the glory of his grace.”  The Lord redeemed us and made us new creations so that He might show forth His glory through His grace.  God lavished his grace upon us to show off to the angels, to the demons, and to Satan!  Then God said in verse 12 that we “… should be to the praise of his glory.”  The word “should” puts the responsibility upon us to show God’s grace.  And finally, in verse 14, Paul said that we received God’s grace “… unto the praise of his glory.”  Our purpose is to be God’s trophies of grace and to show off for God.  Hey, are you God’s trophy?  Or does the trophy belong to someone else?  Think about it.