Sunday, August 25, 2013

Walk Worthy

Does my walk show the world that I appreciate God's blessings? 


Walk Worthy

Ephesians 4:1  I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.

The first three chapters of Ephesians are full of truth about our resources, riches, and the things God has done for us. It is amazing to read through the beginning of Ephesians with a highlighter to mark all of the incredible things that God has done for us.

From chapter four until the end of the book in chapter six Paul tells his readers that because of the amazing things that have been done we need to walk worthy! We need to live up to the high calling that God has placed on our lives.

You know how the media loves a story of somebody that is royalty that has embarrassed their family and their position. They are not their own person in Paul makes it clear that we need to walk a different walk and live up to our position in Christ. Paul teaches this in many of his letters and he doesn't just ask us to live worthy of our position, it's not just a good idea or a suggestion, he is actually begging us.

Listen to Paul's message in some of his other letters, "I plead with you to give your bodies to God, I urge you to imitate me, we plead, 'Come back to God!' and again he says "We pleaded with you, encouraged you, and urged you"

There needs to be perfect harmony between who I am and how I live, if I do not walk worthy then God is not being glorified in my life, in fact instead of being glorified he is being torn down. Other people cannot believe that he did incredible things for me if what he did for me doesn't have an effect on how I live.
Look what He's done for me!
✔  Blessed us with all spiritual blessing
✔  Chose us before the foundation of the world
✔  Made us to be holy, to be blameless
✔  Predestined us
✔  Adopted us to praise him
✔  Given us redemption and forgiveness
✔  Made known to us the mystery of His will
✔  Give us an inheritance
✔  Granted to us the Holy Spirit
✔  Given us resurrection power
Thank you for for all of the amazing things that you have done for me. I pray that my life will show how much I appreciate the gift of salvation and the many blessings that you bestow on your children.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Love Beyond Understanding

If you have experienced this kind of love then you need to pass it on.


God's Love

Ephesians 3:17-19  Then Christ will make His home in your hearts as you trust in Him. Your roots will grow down into God's love and keep you strong.   

18  And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is.

19  May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

Trying to understand God's love is like seeing a picture of the Grand Canyon, you don't really comprehend how huge it is, but when you are standing on the edge of it looking at it in person you get a better perspective. You can see a little bit better how wide, how deep and how long it is, you get a better idea of its size. But wait, there is more, after you take that in and think you know about it, jump into a helicopter and go up above it and see more of the length, go down into the canyon and you get a better idea of the depth.

As we trust him more and the Holy Spirit gets control of our life we will understand a little better about God's enormous love for us. We will see where we are at and how bad off we are and how much we need to grow to become more like Christ. It will become very clear that he must really love us to accept us in the state that we are in.
Controlled by love.
2 Corinthians 5:14-15  Either way, Christ's love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life.  15  He died for everyone so that those who receive His new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.
God's love took control of him and compelled him to send his son to help make us right with him. I need to follow his example and be controlled by love in the same way. Imagine love that is so strong that it compels you to help those that are so beneath you and so far from measuring up to your standard and yet you give them your all and adopt them into your family! That is an amazing love!

We let things control us, it may be pleasure or drugs or fear, it would be awesome if we could learn to allow love to control our every move but even followers of Jesus take control or we allow something else to be in control besides him.

Help me Lord to allow love to control my life more and more as I become more like your son.

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Use The Force

We have power that we need to start using.



Ephesians 3:14-16, 20  When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father,  15  the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth.  16  I pray that from His glorious, unlimited resources He will empower you with inner strength through His Spirit.

20  Now all glory to God, who is able, through His mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.

So far in our study of the book of Ephesians Paul has been talking about who we are in Christ, some of the things that he has told us includes who we are because of our salvation, he has told us about the "Incredible Power" that we have, and that we should desire to be "Used By God."
Now Paul tells us that he is praying for us to realize that we have been blessed with unlimited resources to do the work that God has given us. It seems that Paul wants us to go beyond having head knowledge about our position in Christ and the power that is available.

"The average person uses one tenth of one percent of his brain. And I would venture to say that the average Christian probably uses one tenth or less of the percentage of the power of God that is available at his disposal"
-John MacArthur
It isn't doing you any good to have a powerful sports car in the driveway if you are not willing to put the key in and crank it up. That's how it is for most Christ followers, we have God's power in our life, the power that created the universe, the power that raised Christ from the dead, is the same power that works in us through the Holy Spirit but we fail to access the power by not turning the key.
We are powerful and protected.
Ephesians 6:10-11  A final word: Be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power.  11  Put on all of God's armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil.
What a combo we have! The power and strength of almighty God is on our side and we also have protective armor that God has made available.We definitely have the advantage in the battle but we have to utilize the power and the protection or it's not doing us any good.

The potential power that we have as a child of God is more than we can understand, we just need to plug into the power and get the victory over sin and become more like Jesus. As we progress we will have victory and "sin less," not become "sinless," that won't happen on this side of glory.

Thank you Lord for taking care of me so well. There isn't anything greater than having your power and protective armor to stand firm in the battle and grow more like you.

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Peace With God

My faith in Jesus work on the cross gives me undeserved privileges


Forgiven
Ephesians 3:12  Because of Christ and our faith in Him, we can now come boldly and confidently into God's presence.

Romans 5:1-2  Therefore, since we have been made right in God's sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us.

Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God's glory.

The fact that I have been forgiven of all of the things that I have ever done wrong is so amazing. To think that God who is so perfect and has nothing to do with sin or evil can welcome me into his presence is pretty incredible.

The Bible says that we can come into God's presence because of two things, the work of Jesus on the cross and our faith in Jesus, that's the only way to come to God and enjoy his presence. On the surface it looks like God did his part by having Jesus come to die for us and then it is up to us to have the faith to believe but everything that we have comes from God and that even includes the faith to believe.

I can come into the presence of God boldly and with confidence, there isn't any reason to fear, God loves me and he covered my sin debt already. When he looks at me he doesn't see somebody that owes him for all of my sin. He sees me as all paid up!
John 5:24  "I tell you the truth, those who listen to My message and believe in God who sent Me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins, but they have already passed from death into life."
I hope that you know without a doubt that you can have peace with God. Our relationship with God was broken by sin but he he has provided the way to restore our relationship so that we can have peace with him and peace in the trials of life.

More information on how to "Find Peace With God"

Thursday, August 01, 2013

Used By God

It is a privilege to serve God.


Ephesians 3:7-11  By God's grace and mighty power, I have been given the privilege of serving Him by spreading this Good News.  Though I am the least deserving of all God's people, He graciously gave me the privilege of telling the Gentiles about the endless treasures available to them in Christ.   

I was chosen to explain to everyone this mysterious plan that God, the Creator of all things, had kept secret from the beginning.  10  God's purpose in all this was to use the church to display His wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.  11  This was His eternal plan, which He carried out through Christ Jesus our Lord.

Most of us don't like the idea of being used, it usually implies that someone has taken advantage of us, but the people that are being used by God don't mind it at all and they are usually very happy about it. In our selfish, sinful world people get used and mistreated everyday, we are not very nice to the people around us but there is somebody that we should be happy to have use us.

The Apostle Paul tells us that he was very privileged to be used by God. Paul was always zealous for God and wanted to be useful and obedient, that's why he was so well studied in the ways of Judaism, most of his life had been spent learning how to please God. Paul really thought that he knew God's will.

It is easy to think that your busyness is helping you accomplish God's will for your life but sometimes we are missing the mark just as bad as Paul did. Imagine spending so much time trying to please God with your life, going to the temple to learn from the local rabbi, studying everything that he taught about God and then you find out that the way to please God is totally opposite of what you had learned. God had to show him that he wasn't interested in the work that Paul was doing for him.

Instead of shoving Paul over to the side and deciding the he wasn't useful God gave him a chance for a turn around. He didn't deserve a do over but God corrected Paul's understanding about the Old Testament and revealed the truth of the Messiah to him so that he could understand the events that just happened in Jerusalem surrounding Jesus.
Appointed by God
John 15:16  You didn't choose Me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit.
A popular question to ask somebody you just met is "What kind of work do you do?" It would be awesome if we answered this question from a heavenly perspective. All of God's children have been given a job to do and we should know what it is and be just as able to talk about it as we are able to talk about our career choices here on earth.

None of us deserve to have God find us useful and beneficial to his work but by his grace we get to have a job doing kingdom work. God's grace chose to use me without any regard for my resume or my past performance.

God wants me to be his servant, someone that is a waiter or a foot washer, jobs that don't sit well with a lot of people. God wants me to serve with a sense of who I really am without him. There isn't any room for pride or glorifying myself when I think about how much he has done for me as a wretched sinner without hope.

I need to be the church by serving in the role that God has called me to work in. The church is here to bring glory to God but that will not happen unless we are obedient to God's call and serve him with our lives. (Ephesians 3:10, Matthew 5:16)

Lord help me to understand your will and the work that you have appointed for me to accomplish.