EPHESIANS 1

15 Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints,

16 Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers;

17 That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:

18 The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,

19 And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power,

20 Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places,

21 Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come:

22 And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church,

23 Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.

KNOWING CHRIST IN ALL HIS FULLNESS

I wonder what it was like to be one of the believers in Ephesus, as this letter was read to the whole church, it must of been so eye opening to hear these words read in their original written language of Greek.

Paul has said the longest sentence in the bible and now he is going to pray the first of his greet prayers for the church and the individual believers in Ephesus.

Paul has outlined all that we have in Christ and who we are in Christ, now he prays that we fully grasp and grow in this wonderful knowledge.

He doesn’t want these things in vs 3-14, just to be head knowledge, he wants these things to deepen and develop in the life of the church and each individual believer.

In verse 17, Paul states that the believers be given the spirit of wisdom and revelation, they would have a passionate heavenly mindset to all the things mentioned in vs 3-14.

The believers would fully grasp all that Christ has given them, to do this, we need God’s wisdom, because these things cannot be discerned by human wisdom, how can human wisdom understand redemption, adoption and election?

God through his holy spirit is continually revealing to us new things, Paul is saying, may God continually reveal new and exciting things about Christ to you.

Let me ask you as you read your bible, Is God revealing new things about Christ?

Are you grasping more of what you have in Christ and who you are in Christ?

SEE John 1:14-16, Colossians 3:11. Romans 13:14, John 15:5

He prays for three P’s:

To know God’s amazing plan verse 19

4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will

God had a plan, before time began, he choose you, he predestined you. Do I understand these things? No!

I do not wish to get into an argument over this subject, the bible teaches it and so I believe it. Some things are beyond our mind’s scope, all we can do is to wonder at the glory of it…amen

We praise God although we see through a glass darkly, there are things, we don’t understand, but we know and praise God that he had a plan for each and everyone for us.

These verses in Romans 8, are so wonderful:

29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

To know God’s amazing power vs 19-20

The ESV says:

19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might

We all know that hurricanes and earthquakes can be measured, but God’s power cannot be measured, it is immeasurable, and it works in us, it is to us who believe, it is working in and through us, by his precious Holy spirit.

The same power that is working in us, is the same power that raised Christ from the dead, it we ever caught the full extent of this, we would not be afraid of anyone.

To know the person of Christ vs 20-23

Christ is above all things, so we can be assured that he is in control of everything and not only that he is in control of the church.

We can have the upmost confidence because Christ is above all and has all things under his feet, what does Christ have under his feet, sin and death are under his feet, he has defeated them.

That is the confidence the Christian has and Paul prays that the believers will know the glorious fullness of God’s plan, power and the magnificent person of Christ.

Paul’s whole focus is Christ and his whole focus, is that the church and the believers would know Christ, he wrote to the Philippian believers in this way in chapter 3 of that wonderful book:

 8Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,

9 And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:

10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;

11 If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.

12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.

Our whole focus should be Christ, our whole aim, should be to know Christ.

Is knowing Christ and knowing him better your whole focus?

Is he and he alone, your abiding passion?

God bless you

KK

EPHESIANS 1

15 Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints,

16 Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers;

TRUE PURPOSE DRIVEN PRAYER

How do we pray for each other?

What is our motivation for praying for your fellow believers.

Paul has stated what we have in Christ, he has shown us that we have everything IN Christ.

When we see believers trusting in and serving Christ, then we  should pray for them.

How do we pray for people:

We pray profitably for them, Paul says for this reason.

For what reason you say, well to gain a thorough knowledge of all he has outlined in verses 3-14, because if we truly grasped what we have in Christ and who we are in Christ, then we would have true Christian assurance and security, most of the problems in our Christian lives, lie in a lack of security and we have no knowledge of who we are in Christ.

He prayed precisely for them, look at the rest of the prayer, he is praying for specific things for the believers, he is praying for wisdom, hope, knowledge of God and power. He is not praying for worldly things, but for things relating to the kingdom of God.

We pray for them personally.

Note he talks of your faith, he prays for each of the believers in Ephesus. As we read further in this prayer, we see how personal this prayer is. When we pray every day, we pray for individual believers, sure we pray for the church, but we pray for individual believers. Paul had spent years in Ephesus, he knew many of these believers in person, many in churches today, only know those in their little cliques.

We pray for them passionately

As soon as Paul heard about these believers, he started to pray. 

As you read the prayer, can you hear the passion, he is praying with. Do you pray for your fellow believers with passion?. Is it just bless X or Y, or do you pray with passion for them?

He prays persistently,  he does not cease to give thanks for these believers. His prayers were ongoing and constant for the believers, he did not pray once in a while for these believers, he brought them before the throne of grace on most days.

He prays with a positive result in mind, look ahead to the prayer, what is the result, that they would know the power of God manifested in their lives. Prayer is power and the result of you praying into believers lives is that they are infused with the very power of God.

As you pray for your fellow believers, you need to pray in these five ways:

Profitably

Personally

Passionately

Precisely

Persistently

If we pray like this, our prayers, will have a positive result, that the very power of God would be unleashed in the people and churches you pray for.

God bless you

KK

Ephesians 1

13 In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,

14 Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.

SIGNED SEALED AND DELIVERED

What happens when a person truly trusts Christ for salvation?, 

One of the things, is that he/she receives the precious Holy spirit, who is their teacher, guide and comforter.

One of the things that the Holy spirit does is to seal us, to authenticate us in the sight of God.

When you have a piece of porcelain from a world famous factory, it will usually have the makers or artists mark on it, it is the same with us, we are sealed with God’s seal or stamp, we are his.

God has purchased us as his prized possession, he now seals us, remember that the Spirit of God is fully God, he can and does do this, the seal is the guarantee we will receive the inheritance.

One day we will receive our full inheritance,  it is a sure thing, there should be no doubt in our minds.

I come to all these verses and they are my favourite verses in the whole bible, their focus is on God and what Jesus did for us on the cross. 

They go back to the dawn of history and look forward to heaven and to the glorious realisation that we will be his forever.

They are reassuring words for the believer, but also thay are words to motivate you, to share and proclaim what Christ has done for you.

It’s truly awesome, but it’s no good keeping it to yourself.

I pray as we delve deeper into Ephesians, these truths will resonate in your heart and mind.

God bless you

Keith

EPHESIANS 1

11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:

12 That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.

THE BEST INHERITANCE

If salvation, redemption and adoption weren’t enough, we now come to the promise of an eternal inheritance. Jesus mentions this in John 14:1-3 and Peter must of been thinking of this, when he wrote these words under the urging of the Holy Spirit.

1 Peter 1

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

4 To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you,

5 Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

Our parents and other relatives leave us money, but that inheritance will not last, the inheritance we received through Christ, never loses it’s value, it remains constant.

As I have read this passage, I realise one thing, God doesn’t have to do any of this, he makes a deliberate choice, he gives all these blessings, simply because of his love and mercy towards us. The counsel of his own will, he does these things, not to glorify us, but to glorify himself, our salvation , our redemption, adoption and inheritance are about Him and always will be.

God does all things for us glory and our good, he saves us that we should bring praise to his glory and supreme majesty.

Heaven is our inheritance, intimate fellowship for eternity is our privilege, we shall see his face and serve Him forever.. amen.

We are heirs of this promises and joint heirs with Christ, have we received our inheritance yet?

No, but we will, it defies description, it simply blows our minds to even think of it.

If you have this inheritance, then you want others to have it too, this is a motivation to share the gospel. Do you know Christ and have this inheritance?

Let’s finish with this amazing verse from Romans 8, rejoice Christian, you are an heir and a joint heir with Christ.

Romans 8:17

King James Version

17 And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

Next time the devil, tells you that you are worthless, tell him this you have an inheritance that lasts forever, that’s how to answer him.

God bless you

Keith