Jacobs Thoughts and Doings

Our geraniums sing with color!  We admire their exhuberance!

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.  I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. 

Ephesians 3:14 – 17

Paul, bless him, prays for the believers in Ephesus, people that he knows very well.  Can we assume that his counsel is for us today?  Here is what he is praying.

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

Let’s ponder what we read and be amazed anew. The Spirit of the Lord speaks! 

God’s glorious riches are available to us – Jews, Gentiles, old, young, Greek, Roman, American, African, all!  That is a gift or riches beyond telling!  It is equally available to all who believe, all!

Jesus died for me and for all who believe, but as we read, there is much more! These glorious riches give us strength to believe and to live.

As we receive these glorious riches, we are strengthened by the power of the Holy Spirit who is also in us by faith, by whom we are made strong to believe.  Our inner being is renewed constantly, day and night, throughout life by the presence of Christ right here and now.

I rest my all on him!

In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.  I ask you, therefore, not to be discouraged because of my sufferings for you, which are your glory.

Ephesians 3:12, 13

In him.  Paul always points the basis of our walk with God – first, we live in Him.  Our lives are hidden in Jesus Christ, as it were.  The grace of God accomplishes that in us.

Through faith in him.  That certainly means believing with all our hearts the wonderful truth that through the finished work of Christ, He can live in us if we invite him to do so.  Without that all is doom.  With faith in him, we are blessed, blessed, beyond telling.  Because of that faith, we approach God with freedom and confidence.  Is that not full grace?  Freedom of access, and confident that we have a wide door of acceptance, because Jesus is with us.

As his own personal word of witness to what he is explaining, Paul reminds his readers that he suffered at the hands of the strict Jews while in Ephesus.  Those had been his colleagues in persecuting the followers of Jesus.  Imagine their chagrin when Paul was found by the Lord and converted!

As Paul looks back on it all, in the past and the present, he is reminded that his own personal sufferings brings glory to the fellowship of believers, Jew and Greeks.

Twila and Paul visit us now and again.  Today they went out and bought some sweet corn, then husked it and allowed me to snap a picture of them at work, getting ready for lunch.  Goodie!

I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power. Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things.

Ephesians 3:7 – 9

Amazing, indeed.  Paul, the Saul of Tarsus who persecuted the church mercilessly, now leads the believers into a new era where Jews and Gentiles are accepted alike by God.

If ever a man was changed, radically, Paul is that man.  God so changed him that he became key in welcoming both Jews and Gentiles into the Body of Christ.  This, incidentally, put Paul at odds with the leaders of the Jews.

Personally, coming to Jesus changed me through and through, yet Paul’s transformation is unparalleled.  As all believers, we had Paul as an example that astounded us. If he can change like that, I can as well!  Allow Jesus to remake me!  Always.

Paul cites what happened to him as a mystery.  He could never imagine loving Gentiles, now he loves them as he loves Jews, as God does.  Mystery of mysteries.

As I look back at my life as a believer in several cultures, I find myself admiring Paul more and more.  I struggled with opening my heart for all believers, no matter what their background.  Still do, I must admit.  But Paul surely showed the way.

For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles…This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.

 Ephesians 3:1, 6

Paul, raised as a strict Pharisee in Turkey shocks us with his confession that he is Jesus’ prisoner!  Why is this so dramatic?  I think it was because he risked all by loving and living with Gentile believers.  He was a prisoner of the love of Jesus!

Does this speak to me?  Am I a lover of all believers?  Near and far?  With all their flaws, in uncounted cultures now and always? Including my brothers and sisters in Christ here on Lyndell Drive in Lancaster, and in the small congregation called Chestnut Hill, our primary fellowship?

This is radical, indeed.   For Paul, this was the bed-rock of his faith, and his life – that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.

Co-heirs with Jews and Greeks now in one body?  Only in Christ Jesus is this possible!  Both are sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.  This is a unity that is only possible because we are all saved by Jesus and all full of the Holy Spirit of God.

This is as true today as the day it was written.  Does this describe my experience and testimony?  I pray so.

The determination of our roses to bloom is something!  As the Fall approaches, this takes on a special meaning.

And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

Ephesians 2:22

“In Him.”  That is the solid foundation, it is all in Jesus!  Every other foundation that we might be tempted to build on is flawed.  Only Jesus is as pure as heaven itself.  I think of false alternatives, like religious affiliation, national pride, personal dignity and so on – all flawed!  When we walk with Jesus and are guided by his light we can see clearly.  There is only one sure foundation, eternal from now until all eternity, Jesus Christ and the entire blessed Trinity.

Gentile foundations fail. Jewish foundations fail.  Only Jesus endures forever.

So, Paul ends this opening section of his letter.  As we believers in Jesus rest on the foundation that is Jesus Christ, we are blessed now and forever.  The Spirit of God lives in us!  Can it be?  Yes, by God’s magnificent saving and keeping grace.

Amen!