Help me – I need a ladder.  Would somebody PLEASE pass me a ladder so I can save myself?  God is reaching down from heaven with His mercy and grace and I need to climb up the ladder as far as I can with lots of good works to meet God so I can be saved.  Oops!  Wait a minute!  I have a BIG problem!  I’m dead spiritually, AND DEAD MEN CAN’T CLIMB LADDERS.  In Ephesians 2:1-10 the apostle Paul reminds the Christians of their past, “You were dead in your transgressions and sins.”  That’s bad news.  But then Paul gives them the good news in Ephesians 2:4-5, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved.”  Big Daddy Weave wrote a song that that comes right out of Ephesians 2:1-10. It is entitled Alive.  Read Ephesians 2:1-10 and then be moved by this beautiful song to excel in good works out of a heart of gratitude to God for saving you and making you alive.  Maybe some of you need to throw away your ladder and put your trust in Jesus?

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 flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving 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 is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.