Eph. 2:1-10; Eph. 5:14; Rom. 5:17; Eph. 5:6; 2 Tim. 1:7.

 “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:4, 5, ESV).

 On October 14, 1987, eighteen-month-old Jessica McClure was playing in her aunt’s backyard when she fell twenty-two feet into an abandoned well. Her plight attracted media from around the world to Midland, Texas. A global audience watched “Baby Jessica” sleeping, crying, singing, and calling out for her mother. They watched as emergency workers piped fresh air down the well.

 Finally, fifty-eight hours after Jessica’s fall, the worldwide audience watched as Jessica was released from the eight-inch well casing that had trapped her for more than two days. Photographer Scott Shaw’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph captured the moment: a rescue cable bisects the worried faces of Jessica’s rescuers looking down at the bandaged bundle at the heart of the drama, Baby Jessica.

 There’s nothing quite as gripping as a good rescue story, and Paul, in Ephesians 2:1-10, gives us an up-close-and-personal view of the grandest, most sweeping rescue mission of all time — God’s efforts to redeem humankind. The drama of the story is heightened by knowing that we are not mere spectators of someone else’s rescue but witnesses of our own.

 Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, July 22.