Ephesians 1:15-23

Ephesians 1:15-23

What we pray about tells us a great deal about our faith. When the priority of our prayer life is getting stuff, health, wealth, and happy circumstances, our faith is very likely shallow. What we see Paul praying for and on behalf of the Ephesians was something very different. His prayer begins that they would have a spirit, not specifically the Holy Spirit, but their own spirit or attitude of “wisdom and revelation.” Wisdom means the ability to apply the truth to life’s circumstances. Revelation means to understand the truth. The man who cannot understand the scripture is no better off than the man who has no scripture. The man who doesn't apply what he knows is no better off than an ignoramus.

Paul prays that they will have the eyes of their heart enlightened or opened. It is sadly too frequent that as believers we are oblivious to what is available to us. Paul wants believers to see with their hearts. “Heart” for the ancients was not the emotion but the desire or the will. What Paul wants is for disciples to have a clear vision of the right desires based on three key points.

The first is the “hope of His (Christ’s) calling.” Hope is a preferred vision of the future. We all have hope. It is that future in which our deep heart desires are fulfilled. God has for us a very specific preferred vision of our future. That hope must displace our self-made hope; there isn't room for two hopes in our heart. Never forget God's hope for us is always better.

Second, and related to that, we see “the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.” So what is this rich inheritance in us? It is that ‘something’ we all lost in Eden and has been restored in Jesus and will be ours again. It has already begun in us and will be fulfilled in the new heaven and new earth.

Finally, Paul also wants us to comprehend “the power towards us who believe.” An eternity with God would not be very joyful for a person who does not want to be with Him or who does not love Him. But the power of becoming a person who would want to be with God is already at work in us. This gives us the power to cope with the challenges we face. It gives us the power to see not from a momentary perspective but from the holy perspective. It is the power that works out in daily living, the eternal life that has already begun in us. By the hope of His calling, by the riches of His glory, and by His power towards us, we are living from the throne room of Heaven even while here on earth.

“Lord, give me the wisdom to apply the understanding of the truth. AMEN”

Ephesians 1:1-14

Ephesians 1:1-14

Paul's letter to the Ephesians is a dynamo of truth and application. If Romans is Paul's systematic theology, then we might call Ephesians his explosive theology. While less orderly, it explodes from Paul's love for the gospel and the audience. Sometimes digressing, sometimes leaping forward, but always exalting the gospel. In fact, Ephesians 1:3-14 is actually one excited sentence that poured off of Paul's pen. In English we have broken it up, but for Paul it was one breathless race toward the conclusion in verse 14: “to the praise of His glory.” It would be a great thing to study in detail every verse and every word of the sentence and book, but for our purposes we will look at two words that can shape us as disciples.

In verse 4 Paul says that we should be “holy and blameless” before God. God’s intention for us from before the beginning of time is that we would be holy and blameless. We must avoid two mistakes as we consider being holy and blameless. The first is to say, “I am forgiven; that makes me perfect, so check that box off.” While that is true, it misses the point Paul is making. The second mistake we might make is to say, “I can't do that, so why even try?” Both of these stem from a misunderstanding of the words holy and blameless. The word holy means different or separate. The temple was holy because it had a different purpose. The Sabbath was holy because it was set apart and different from other days. God is holy because He is completely different from all else. We are to be holy, which is different from other people because we are set apart for God. To be a holy person does not mean that God wants us out of our community to be a monk in the desert. Rather, we are different in our world, a difference that should be obvious.

The second word in this couplet, “blameless,” is not well understood. We think of the word meaning having never done anything wrong. That kind of person would certainly be blameless, but that is not what we are looking at here. The word literally means “no blemish” and was the requirement for a sacrificial animal. A blemish is that which spoils the reputation or causes the blame. Blameless is descriptive of a pattern of life. It is one thing to say something sharp once but different to have a consistently sharp tongue with everyone. Blameless or unblemished describes the person who is not hiding a pattern of consistent sin. The point here is being the real deal. The absence, complete absence, of sin in our lives is the goal; “holy and blameless” is descriptive of the journey we walk by grace to get to being the real deal.

“Lord, help me to be holy and blameless.  AMEN”