Love and Blessings, Rich
Before taking our summer break in July, we will study Philemon and Titus for the month of June.
Love and Blessings, Rich
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Having looked at Paul's teachings on marriage and Christ's relationship to the church, it makes sense for us to now look at the relationship between children and parents.
Children who belong to the Lord are to obey their parents and honor their father and mother. These are the right things to do. Too often in our world today, children have come to the idea that their parents are there to do whatever they want. It has often become distorted and children think that parents should obey them. For the Christian family, this is completely wrong. Children are to live lives that bring honor to their parents not disgrace and shame. Again, some children think they can do whatever they want. They say that it is their life to live and they pay the price if the mess up. In reality, parents and the entire family pays they price of a life lived wrongly. Parents, their joy and reputations, can be affected by a child's behavior. Parents ability to instruct and raise their children can even be criticized due to a rebellious child. God regards the idea of children honoring their parents so much that He even makes them a promise. He promises that if they honor their mother and father, things will go well for them and they will live long on the earth. The promise of God given to children who honor their parents is an incredibly better promise that what they get for being rebellious or caving in to peer pressure. We hope that they would realize that. Fathers are not to provoke their children to anger by how they treat them. There seems to be some confusion on this at times. Children think that means that fathers should never do anything that makes them angry. That is not what provoke in this sense means. Fathers should not treat their children with the intent of making them angry. His treatment should not be such that he does things in an effort to bring them to anger. He should discipline them and instruct them as the Lord instructs. There are many verses in Scripture that give insight into discipline. Discipline is correcting and instructing with a heart that wants to better the child's life and future. God Himself gives that example in how He disciplines and corrects us. He does it not to make us angry or embarrass us but to make us better people so we can live wonderful lives. Paul moves on to slaves and masters. However, every time I read this portion, it seems to me to that it can also speak to employers and employees. I use slaves and employees as the same but do not intend it to be that employees are slaves to their boss or jobs. So, in light of us being children of God while slaves in Paul's time or employees in both his time and ours, we are to treat our masters/employers with deep respect and fear. We are to do our jobs with sincerity in the same manner which we would serve Christ. We should strive to please them at all times and in all that we do. We should not just appear to be trying to please them when they are near by. Remember, integrity is doing what we should do even when no one is looking. Christ bought us by sacrificing His life for us. He paid for our sins and bought us. Paul recognizes that relationship and calls himself a slave of Christ many times. Having all our debts paid for by Christ we have become slaves to Him and as such we should work with enthusiasm and we should do the will of God with all our heart. We should work for man as if we were doing what we were doing for Christ. As believers, what we do and how we work reflects on Christ. If we cheat and are lazy at work, then people not only think of us that way but also of Christians as being that way. Such a situation impacts the world's view of Christ. Christ will reward us for working with the right heart and spirit for doing so glorifies Him in all the world. Masters/employers should treat their slaves/employees the same way. They should not hurl threats at them. They should be aware that regardless of whether they are boss or slave, both have a Master, the same Master who is Christ the Lord. Christ does not favor a master over a slave nor an employer over and employee. He cares for them equally and expects the same of both. We need to realize that we live in a world where there is a great battle going on. Bad and horrible things happen. Life often doesn't go the way we want. Life often seems so unfair. Please understand that this battle, this war, these tough times are not a fight against people but against evil rulers in unseen places. We are in a spiritual battle against spiritual powers and authorities and evil spirits in heavenly places. These evil forces want to rob God of those He loves and keep them from spending eternity with Him. We must understand that we have to battle, not as we would battle humans, but we must battle this war with spiritual weapons and defenses. If we think we can be strong and victorious in our human strengths we will not succed. Paul instructs us to be strong in the Lord and His mighty power. Only by doing so can we hope for victory. Understanding that, he instructs us to put on all the armor of God. God has given us tools, weapons and defenses to fight this fight with. Just as we get up every day to get ready for the day that is set before us, we must also get ready for the battle that is daily before us. The evil one attacks continually. He does not care about our jobs, families, responsibilities or committments. He is out do destroy us at any time or moment regardless of what we have "scheduled" for that day. We can be attacked and brought into to battle at any moment so we must be ready - at all times. How can we be ready? How do we resist the enemy in times of evil? How do we stand our ground firmly in battle? Every day when we arise we get dressed in our suit or jeans or work clothes. We should also be aware that this day may bring a battle that we should be prepared for. So, we should also take time to dress for battle with the equipment God has graciously given each and every one of us. We should dress in the armor of God. Living when Paul did, he likens our spiritual armor to the armor of the Roman soldier. During his life, the Roman soldier was the bravest, most courageous, fiercest, most unbeatable and victorious soldier on earth. Put on this armor, the armor of God and when your battle is over, you will be found standing firm. You will be in a spiritual battle and only the spiritual armor of God will give you the victory you need. Determination, cleverness, self discipline, a tough guy attitude, power or strength may bring victory in fleshly battles but will not give you victory in spiritual battle. So, Paul tells us to put on the armor of God. What is that armor? First, know the truth and live in it. For with the spiritual armor of God, truth is the belt of the suit of armor. The belt in a suit of armor was the center piece of the suit. It gave support to a person's core and it was the thing that other parts of armor were tied to. The breastplate was tied to it to keep it secure, the sword hung from it and so on. Other parts of armor were held in place by being tied to truth. Next walk and live in righteousness. For armor, put on the body armor (breastplate) of righteousness. The breastplate protects the heart and all vital organs. So then righteousness protects the wearer from attacks to his/her heart or organs by the enemy. I have read an interesting thing about the Roman soldier. It seems that they had only the breastplate. They believed that a superior soldier had no need for covering on their back. They were dedicated to standing firm, always facing the enemy. If you ran, your back would be exposed and you deserved to die. The breastplate was there to protect those who faced their enemies ready to do battle. He next tells us to put on peace that is our shoes. We can battle in peace and stand firm in that peace as it comes from the Good News that Christ gave Himself for us sinners, that we who believe in Him will not perish but have life everlasting. Going into battle knowing that we can fight and that we have been promised life eternal will give us peace in battle. We can hold our ground and fight our fights with this knowledge. The Roman shoes had great spikes on the bottoms. They could have solid footing - no matter what the terrain. They could stand firm on grass, stones, clay, or mud. No matter where the battle took place, they could remain confident that they would never lose their footing. We also can stand firm trusting that we will never lose our footing in any battle because of the peace we have in the promise of the Good News to all who believe. Next hold firmly to your shield of faith. Our faith is mobile. It can be moved from right to left, it can be held over our heads. No matter where the attack comes from, no matter how the battle may change, we can always keep our faith before us to extinguish the flaming arrows sent our way by the evil one. I read that some battle shields were made of thick wood coated in a substance that put out fires. So if the enemy shot flaming arrows, they would not glance off or be deflected but get stuck in the wood where the flames would be snuffed out. Next, put on salvation as your helmet. Let the knowledge that you are saved protect your mind and thoughts from the lies of the devil. He is the father of lies, deceit and confusion. Always know you are saved and that no one can take your salvation away. Keeping the knowledge of your salvation on the top of your mind will protect your mind from confusion, lies and misleadings. Let salvation protect you from being led astray causing you to question or not believe the promise of God. Let me pause here. Have you noticed that all the armor you have been given so far is defensive? You can stand there and take a beating and survive but you have nothing to fight back with. I don't know about you but surviving a battle in the spiritual manner is not what I want to do, Paul next tells us to take the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God. THE ONLY OFFENSIVE WEAPON IN OUR SUIT OF ARMOR IN THE TIME OF BATTLE IS THE WORD OF GOD. If we do not study, read, know and understand the word of God, the best we can hope to do is survive beating after beating. To be able to fight back and claim victory, we have to know the word of God. We have to read and study His word. Knowing the Bible has got to be our most important effort. God has given us one thing to fight back with. He has given us a sword that can cut through all that the devil sends our way. The words can send the forces of darkness running. If you do not want to go into battle without a weapon, if you want to be able to fight off your enemies, then study and read the word or God as if life depended on it. Permit me to offer my vision of a man/woman in battle. I like to express it this way; If your life walk and life focus is on God, you are face to face with Him. You look toward Him dressed for battle in the armor He has given you. Your courage and your strength and your armor come from Him. The devil hates it when we live our lives focused on God. He hates it when we live looking to God for all we have and can become. So he does what any good soldier who opposes us does. He tries to come between us and the person who gives us our strength and armor and promises us victory. He stands between God and us firing all the fiery arrows he can. He stands between us trying to confuse us and rob us of our knowledge of salvation. He tries to keep us out of the Word, but we are dressed for that battle. If we leave off any part of that armor, we open ourselves up and give the devil an opportunity to attack us through that unprotected area. Even worse, if we stopped being focussed on God, if we take a direction in life that leads us away from God, we are opening our unarmored backs to the devil and giving him a clean shot at killing us or severely wounding us. We must never turn our backs on God, we must always keep our eyes and hearts centered on Him if we are to be protected and victorious. Paul tells us to pray for all believers everywhere. He asks the Ephesians to pray for him so he can boldly explain the Good News. Perhaps that should be our prayer for one another. Paul closes with bringing them up to date and giving them a beautiful blessing. I love seeing his offering of a blessing to those he wrote to. I have made it part of my prayers often that I pray one of his blessings for people I pray for. As we study Paul's letter to the Ephesians we can take all of it into our time and lives. We can reset priorities and live better lives being more devoted to God. We can be ready daily for the battle that is around us everywhere. We can stand tall, not grow faint, and be victorious. We can serve the Lord well as a soldier in the army of the Most High God. We can defend those around us who are weak and we can bring glory to God. We need not live as victims of a life and a world in which we have no choice but to take what is dealt us. We can be active and stand up against all atrocities of the current age. We can tell others the truth. We can make a difference. I want to offer this devotional and prayer from Charles Stanley. I taped it inside my Bible at the end of Ephesians and pray it often, especially when I feel a battle around me. I thought you might appreciate it. Ephesians 6:13-18 We have a very real Enemy who seeks to deceive and distract us from becoming who God wants us to be. So we must always be alert. Prepare for spiritual warfare by making today's passage part of your daily time with God. For example, "put on" the various armor pieces as you pray: Lord, thank You for giving me everything I need for doing battle in Your name. In the power of Your Spirit, I put on my "armor"-- Protect my mind and imagination with the helmet of salvation. Focus my thoughts steadily on Your love and power.
Paul finished chapter 4 with telling us what a life in Christ wold look like and what a life without a relationship with Christ would look like. In chapter 5 he continues by describing a life lived in the light in more detail.
Paul advises the Ephesians that because they are children of God they should imitate Him in everything they did. Imitating Him would be expressed by living life filled with love, following the life of Christ who lived His life loving the things God loved. His example was that His love for us was deep and sacrificial to the point that He freely sacrificed His life for us that we would have life eternal. Paul again states more ways not to behave as we are children of God. He begins with sexual immorality. Paul writes at length on this topic. 1 Corinthians has several pages dedicated to sexual issues as do several other letters. While Paul writes this so long ago, sexual immorality is still a huge issue today and one to not be taken lightly. He writes; let there be "NO" sexual immorality among you. In addition to that, he adds to not live a life exhibiting impurity, greed, obscene stories, foolish talk, or course jokes. He advises that no such person will inherit the Kingdom of Christ and God. Such a life is one that worships the things of the world. If you think of the things listed, they are worldly not Godly, therefore they are of the world not of God. We, like many others, seem to be able to conjure reasons or excuses for such behaviors but Paul instructs us to not be fooled by such people for God's anger will fall on them. Believers were once full of darkness and expected to behave in such ways but now as children of light our behavior should not include those things. So live as children of light and stop including things of darkness in your lives. If we live as children of light we would do what is good and true. It would be good to not live on automatic but to study the things of God to understand what pleases Him. Take no part in evil and worthless deeds but expose them. Do not even talk about ungodly things or do them in secret. Even the evil things done in secret will be exposed by the light one day. Paul writes, "This is why it is said, Awake, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will give you light. So many of us live life never being fully awake. We walk around in kind of a coma. We do what we do without ever giving much thought to it. We live a robotic life style. If we were to ask one another why we do some of the things we do, many answers would be, "I don't know." If we were to live our lives being asleep , we would most likely end up being counted among the dead. If we wake up and give attention to how we live then it would be like having new life, even being risen from the dead. Once awake and alive, Christ will give us light. Remember that evil will be exposed when the light shines on them as in verse 11. Once we have been given this light, it will shine it our own lives and the darkness and sin in our lives will be exposed and no longer hidden. With those areas illuminated, we can then make corrections to our thoughts and behaviors. Paul goes on to encourage all to be careful how they live and to not live like fools, rather live as wise people. Do not waste opportunities but make the most of them. Don't act thoughtlessly but give thought to what the Lord wants you to do. Being drunk with wine will ruin your life, so stop doing that. Instead of being filled with wine and things that will ruin you, be filled with God's Holy Spirit, sing psalms and hymns, make music to the Lord from your hearts. Live a life being thankful to God in the name of Christ for all you have been given. Paul ends this chapter by addressing relationships. He speaks to husbands and wives saying they should submit to one another out or reverence for Christ. Wives, see your husband as your head and of the family as Christ is the head of the church. Christ is the Savior of the church, the body of believers. In the same way, husbands should be the savior of his wife and family. Christ loved the church to the point He sacrificed His life for it and husbands, as the head of their wives and family, should be willing to sacrifice themselves similar to Christ. Husbands make this sacrifice to make his family and wife holy and clean, to make her the best she can be. The example made by Christ was to make His body, the church, holy and clean by the washing of the body by God's word. Husbands are to love their wives as they would their own body. We know no one hates their own body and has no desire to do things to harm it. In the same way husbands should care for their wives. He should do what is best for her, feed her and clothe her, watch over her and protect her. When a man leaves his mother and father and joins to his wife, they become one. This is difficult to understand. I like to think of being married to one another with God in the middle of that relationship to be something like cardboard. Cardboard is made of two sheets of paper and one sheet of rippled paper. The two paper sheets sandwich the rippled sheet and become cardboard. The two have become one by God cementing them together. The interesting thing is that they can never be separated without destroying one another and hurting the heart of God in the process. Paul ends with the fact that a man should love his wife as he loves himself and the wife should respect her husband. Paul finished chapter 3 by writing that he prayed that God would empower them with inner strength and that Christ would make His home in them as they trusted Him. His prayer continued that their roots would grow deep into God's love and keep them strong. He prayed they would understand the magnitude and greatness of God's love for His people and that they would experience the love of Christ. Through all that they would be complete with all the fulness of life and the power from God.
Paul begins chapter 4 with ......... THEREFORE .....IN LIGHT OF THOSE THINGS, Paul begs them to live lives worthy of being called by God. What does living a life worthy of the call look like? A person living that lifestyle would exhibit things such as; being humble being gentle being patient with one another making allowances for each other's faults out of love for one another trying as best as possible to stay united in the Spirit being bound together in peace with each other He reminds them that there is one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father - the One who is over in and through all. Paul adds that through Christ the church, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers all have been given special gifts. They are to use them to equip God's people to do the work of the Kingdom and build up the church which is the body of Christ. This is to be done until all are united in the knowledge and faith of God's Son so that we will be mature in the Lord. When writing about Christ, who the gifts came through, he talks of He who ascended into the heights and who led a crowd of captives and gave gifts to people.He says that if He ascended, He must also have descended to the lowest parts of the world. (The Bible reports that sometime between His crucifixion and His resurrection, Jesus went to hell. In fact, Ephesians 4:9 says that Jesus “first descended into the lower parts of the earth.” Why? The Bible says it was to set the captives free and to take the very keys to hell away from Satan. Otherwise, how could we ever claim to have victory over death? That’s what Jesus meant when He said in Revelation 1:18, “I am he who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death.” If all that is true – and it is – then how could Jesus have been in two places at the same time? After all, He told the thief on the cross, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:43) You might find it a little surprising, but the Bible records that Paradise was in Hades. That’s right. Jesus spoke about it when He told the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. “So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.” (Luke 16:22-23) The truth is that Scripture supports that Hades included both hell AND heaven, Abraham’s bosom, or what Jesus and many of the everyday Jews of his day referred to as Paradise). According to Jesus, in between the two was “A great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.” (Luke 16:26) by Mike Ruffin @ Devotions.com Once we gain maturity, we will stand strong and no longer be tossed and blown about by every new teaching. Being strong such as this we will not be tricked into false beliefs and lies. Efforts to trick us will grow more clever so that the new untrue teachings will sound true. (We see such teachings even today in prosperity teachings and some big time evangelists.) Having this steadfastness, we will not be misled and we will be able to speak the truth and speak it in love. Living such lives, we will grow more and more into the likeness of Christ. Christ is the head of the body (the church, us believers) and He makes it all fit together perfectly. As each of us do our part to help the body grow, other parts grow and do the same. In this, the entire body grows in healthy ways and in love. Paul continues his encouragement that we no longer live as those apart from God do. Those who are far off are confused and filled with darkness, they have closed minds, their hearts are hard toward God, they have no shame, they live for lustful pleasure and they practice a lifestyle of impurity. Their lives are not the life that God gives but a life of their choosing. When people choose to follow Christ, life changes and the old nature, such as those listed above, is tossed off. When we move to a life in Christ, the Spirit helps us to stop living lives we used to live and strengthens us to live a life pleasing to God. This new person you have been given has been given to be righteous and holy. Do not only stop doing those things listed above but also stop telling lies and rather be honest. Don't let anger control you. Stop stealing and do not use abusive or foul language. Do not bring sorrow to God's Spirit by living a rebellious life. Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, slander, and evil behavior. Rather, be kind and tender hearted, forgive one another, use your hands for good hard work and give generously to those in need. Live rightly for God has promised you salvation on the day of redemption. Remember you have been forgiven by God Himself, therefore forgive others who have wronged you. In light of all that Paul said in chapter 2, he goes on to say that he is a prisoner of Christ so that the Gentiles find salvation. He said he hopes they realize that is the case and that God made him responsible to extend God's grace to them. All of that is part of God's plan, a plan He revealed to Paul, which is why he has such great insight into the plan. He further explains that God did not reveal His plan in previous generations but now has released it through the Holy Spirit. He has made His plan clear to the prophets and apostles He has selected.
The plan is this, that both Jews and Gentiles who believe in Christ as God and Savior and that He died on their behalf would be saved of their sins. He explains that they both share in the great inheritance they will receive as children of God. Believers, whether Jew or Gentile are part of the same body. They both can rest in the blessings promised to them because of their faith in Christ. While Paul is blessed to take the Good News of salvation to all the world, particularly the Gentiles, he is humbled to do so for he sees himself as undeserving to have been chosen as the carrier of the message. For any of us, it might be a difficult thing to do for we could become proud of ourselves and begin to believe that it is we who created the message or that we must be awesome because we were chosen. You can see that it may be easy for us as humans to get full of ourselves rather than staying humble in any success God has given us while sharing the Good News. God's plan was to use the church, the body of believers, to exhibit His wisdom before all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms. That plan was carried our by Christ and it is our responsibility to carry it on today. Because of all Christ has done we can, with faith, come to God with confidence and boldness. Christ has opened that door to God on our behalf. Prior to that we would surely die if we came before Him. When Paul ponders the Good News and God's plan to use the church to show His glory, he falls on his knees and prays to the Father. How often are we overwhelmed by what God has done for us to the point that we fall to our knees? Paul did not say he dropped to his knees, leading us to think of a controlled, deliberate desent. He stated he fell to his knees, painting a picture of a lack of strength or a weakness in his body that caused him to fall. He was over taken to the point of weakness considering the plan and promise given to us by God Himself through Christ. Paul encourages believers to not become disheartened by all the hardships that Paul was suffereing. He said rather they should feel honored that he was willing to endure such things on their behalf. This is a picture of a man doing his best to live as Christ lived. He was willing to be abused and eventually killed for the sake of people like you and me. How much do we love God and His plan? How much do we love those around us? Are we willing to endure great sacrifice and hardship on behalf of those around us? This may be another good time for a personal spiritual check up. Do we realize how great the gift? Do we realize how great the sacrifice of Christ and of those who came after Him? Do we think our 1 hour a week on Sunday is a reasonable response to what we have been given? Do we think that we are sacrificing much for our friends let alone a person we don't like? Do we think that taking time to ponder such things is too much to ask? Do we have any idea how horrible an existence we will not have to endure because of Christ? Pauls prays that God's unlimited resources will empower the believers with great inner strength from His Spirit so that we too can do what Paul is doing. When we accept this and our trust in Him grows, "then" Christ will make our hearts His home. Like tree roots that grow deep into the earth to find life giving nourishment and strength, so then our roots will grow deep into God's love and give us strength. When that happens we will have the power to fully understand just how great, high and deep God's love really is. Paul prays that believers will deeply understand and experience the love of Christ. That being said, he comments that we will never be able to fully comprehend how great that love is. When we find that place in His love, then we will be made complete with a new fullness of life and power that can only come from God. Paul closes by praising God and offering all glory to Him who can lead us to live a life that will accomplish more than we can even imagine. His last line offers all glory to Him in the church, in Christ, and in all the generations to come. Paul states things pretty clearly in chapter two. He talks about our situation and God's reasons for rescuing us.
The chapter begins with him telling his readers (which applies to us as well) that because we have been disobedient we were dead! That talk surely is not dancing around the truth. Because of that disobedience and the sins that disobedience led to, we are dead. Maybe we can think of it as committing spiritual suicide. We chose to do things that brought us death. The only thing that we can say is that perhaps we didn't know better. For some of us today, (I was trying to not be accusing but Scripture says all of us sin) even though we know better, we still allow sin to have a place in our lives. Paul tells his readers that once they lived like the rest of the world. That is a good place to stop and check our lives today. Are we living like the rest of the world? Are our treasures and attitudes that same as worldly people? Do we treat one another just as the worldly do? This next part hit me hard. We think of doing wrong as making a mistake now and again. We think of our pasts as a time when we didn't know better nor had the heart to try to please and honor God. But Paul makes what we were doing quite clear, he tells us that we were "obeying" the devil. To think that I ever "obeyed" the devil sickens me. How does that strike you? Obeying the devil, following the devil, taking orders from the devil who commands the dark powers in the unseen world? I hate the idea that I lived like that and that perhaps I still do. Does a day go by that any of us do not sin? When we refuse to obey God, apparently, it gives the devil an opening to work in our hearts causing us to obey him rather than God. So does a day go by that we do not give the devil an opening to work in our hearts? I don't know about you, but for me, that single thought makes me want to fall on my knees and thank God for His gift of mercy. That makes me realize that I cannot make it through one single day, let alone my lifetime, without inviting the devil to work on me. Our path of not following God but rather listening to the devil becomes clear when we follow the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature rather than following what we know to be right in God. Because of our nature we brought God's anger upon us and with that came the curse of death. Interestingly, we cannot take credit for causing our salvation, but can we think we can take credit for our destruction? There is no getting around it. We messed up and what we get for living like that is death. Paul continues by describing God. God is rich in mercy and love for us so much so that even though we had to die, He gave us life through the life, death, and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ. There is nothing we can or could do to change our destiny of death, nothing. But, God could and He did. He changed our destiny of death and gave us life by the sacrifice of Christ. When He raised Jesus from the dead, we as believers, were also brought back to life. Not only that but we are given a place in heaven. We did nothing to earn that. We did nothing to deserve that. Simply, because of His love and mercy, we are given that place in eternity with Him. God saved all by His grace that He showered us with when we first believed in Christ as Savior. Again, what did we do to earn that? What did we change to be deserving of that? Nothing to both questions. We did nothing. Is there anything we could do today to deserve that grace? Still, no, nothing. His life saving grace was nothing except the greatest gift ever given humanity. Paul makes it clear that salvation is not some kind of reward for the good things we have done, because it is not. None of us can take credit for our salvation. None of us can claim having any part in deserving or earning any part of our salvation. Why did God do that? Because He is full of mercy. Because He loves us. Because He has a plan for each of us. By making us new in Jesus Christ His plans for us to do good things in His name will come to life. Paul reminds those in Ephesus that they are Gentiles and used to be considered outsiders, unworthy and heathens by the Jews. The Jews had a rich tradition and history. They had their roots as the chosen ones of God. In fact they were proud of who they were. They performed ceremonies and rituals to exhibit that past and connection. Circumcision was one of the biggest ones. Many mistakingly believed that circumcision was the key to salvation but that was wrong. Paul points out that for many, circumcision was just a physical act. That while the act was performed, the body had changed but it made no change in their hearts. The act was physical not spiritual. He reminded the Gentiles that once they were far apart from Christ and had no citizenship in Israel nor the promises God had made to the Jews as the ones He called His chosen people. He reminded the Gentiles how they had lived in a world that God was not a part of. He reminded them that living as they lived, they would never know Him. But because of Christ and His life giving sacrifice, they are now close to God. Christ rescued us and He brought peace to us all. His great sacrifice united Jew and Gentile into one new people - the people of God. Previously, the Jews and Gentiles stood against each other but Christ took away the things that created that hostility. He made one new people from those two groups. Not only that, but He reconciled both groups to God. Now there would be no reason for the Jews and Gentiles to hate each other. Now both groups are united in Christ's death on the cross and the salvation it brought. Because of what Christ had done, both groups can now come to the Father through the same Holy Spirit. So now the Gentiles are no longer outcasts, strangers or foreigners but are citizens along with all God's family. All of us together are joined in Christ as His house. This house that we are all part of is built on the foundation that was laid by the prophets. The cornerstone of that foundation is Jesus Christ Himself. This house that is spoken of is the temple. He is building a holy temple of Jew and Gentile where the very Spirit of the living God dwells. All this had been accomplished by what Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior has done. Remember not the smallest part of it was done by our work or effort. All of this was a gift of God. Period. The letter of Ephesians is accepted as being written by Paul and most likely delivered to Ephesus by Tychicus as he also was the one who delivered Colossians. Ephesus was an important city in the Roman empire and this letter, while directed to the church there, may have been meant to be circulated among many local churches in Asia. Paul stayed only a short time in Ephesus during his second missionary journey, however, he spent three years in Ephesus during his third journey.
During his three year stay, he created quite a stir. It is said that he did several baptisms and several unusual miracles happened during that stay. Sorcerers had been converted to Christ. At one point, there was an aggressive and violent action in the city by the makers and sellers of idols due to the loss of business because so many were converting to Christ and walking away from their previous idol worship. Paul begins chapter one by identifying himself and offers a greeting to the faithful in Ephesus. The opening ends with a blessing of peace and grace. Paul goes on to praise God for the blessing of Spiritual gifts and he attributes all Spiritual gifts as coming from God. They have these gifts because of the union they have with Christ. God loved us believers and chose us in Christ to be holy in His eyes so we could be adopted into His family through faith in Jesus. He did all this before the world was even made. Because of this great act, we praise God for the grace He extended to us. That grace was not free but it was purchased for us, who now belong to Him, by the blood and sacrifice of Christ. By that great sacrifice our sins have been forgiven and we have been adopted into His heavenly family. He has revealed His wonderful plan of Christ to us. That plan being that when the time is right, all things in heaven and earth will be under Christ's rule. When this happens, we can look forward to an inheritance from God because of our relationship with Christ. This became guaranteed when we believed in Christ and were identified as His people.He chose us long ago for this blessing and there is nothing that can stop or alter His plan. So that we would glorify Him, He gave us His Spirit and purchased us, freeing us from sin. God planned the Jews would be the first to trust Christ then the Gentiles. Then we all would understand the Good News that God saves us. Paul tells the church that he has not stopped praying for them since he first heard of their great faith in Christ. He requests that God give them spiritual wisdom and insight so their understanding of Him would grow even more. He prays that their hearts will be full of light so they could understand the great hope that was given those He had called to Himself. His prayer continues for them to understand how great God's power is and that it is there for those who believe in Him. The power he prayed for is the same power that was used to raise Christ from the dead and seat Him at the right hand of God in Heaven. Christ's authority is far above anyone else, not only in our world today but also in the world that is yet to come. He closes chapter one with another statement that God has put all things under Christ's authority so that His rule will benefit the church, the whole body of believers. He declares the church to be Christ's body while He is the head. Christ then makes the body, all believers, complete by His presence and Spirit who fills all things everywhere. This chapter tells that the faithful believers were chosen before the creation of the world and that all people and things are under Christ's authority who fills all who believe with His Spirit. Peace and blessings to you all. In His love, Rich. |
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