Ephesians 2:1-10. The first chapter, the greeting of this letter really made a big point of God using his great power to “save” people. All people are under a death sentence that started way back in the Garden of Eden when Adam disobeyed God. Jesus , whose name means Yaweah is salvation (Yahweh is the personal name of the creator God, sometimes translated Jehovah), died in our place to pay that penalty and allow us to have a new relationship with God (See “A Tale of Two Trees” and “Three or One?”).

Here in verse 1 Paul reminds the believers that they were dead because they had trespassed (gone where they shouldn’t have gone) and sinned (missed God’s mark for their lives (see “A Tale of Two Trees”). In verse two Paul points out that this “trespassing” was active on their part by using the word “walked”. He then describes the path they were following (course). These believers used to live their lives like everyone else in the world. Paul gets more specific, he is talking about a world following the Devil, here called the prince of the power of the air and the spirit working in the sons of disobedience. The word power here doesn’t mean physical power but authority, some translations use the word “realm” like a kingdom. In ancient Greek thinking the word used for “air” here (remember the New Testament was written mostly in Greek) was “full of gods and demons” (the quote is from an old Greek writer named Plutarch). The leader or prince of the realm or kingdom of these false gods and demons would of course be the chief demon, Satan or the Devil. If you have read “A Tale of Two Trees” you know that the Devil (who was an angel who rebelled against God, a spirit being) was the spirit who encourage Adam to rebel against God. Also if you have read that page you would know that, although we use our bodies to disobey God that it is mainly about our spirit. Experts aren’t really sure if Paul meant a person’s inner rebellious spirit in the end of verse 2 or if he meant an overall attitude of rebellion in the culture around these people, or if this is another reference to the Devil. Maybe it’s all three. Anyway Paul is reminding his readers, who are now followers of Jesus, that they used to follow a different leader, the Devil, whether it was directly or by following a society that was following him. And this was a choice that they had actively made.

The spirit working in the sons of disobedience may have been their own rebellious spirit though since in verse 3 Paul continues to point out the active choice they had made before they chose to follow Jesus. They wanted something, they were driven by the desires of their bodies and minds and the life they chose to live deserved punishment (wrath) from God (see “A Tale of Two Trees”). Paul reminds his reader that they had lived as a part of that society (among them) and that they were just like everybody else. It is interesting that we all stand on the same level with respect to our guilt before God. Paul told the believers in the Roman church that all of them had been disrespectful and disobedient to God (sinned) and failed to meet his perfect standard (Romans 3:23, see also “A Tale of Two Trees”, God’s standard, called His glory, in Romans 2:23 was for us to relate to him in love and respect). Some Christians like to believe that God chose certain people to be a part of his forever family arbitrarily; randomly. We talked about that in an earlier post on Ephesians. According to this verse no one person deserves to be with God, we all have failed, we have all rejected him to one degree or another.

In verses 4-5 we see that God is “rich in mercy”. Mercy is not giving someone something they deserve. We deserve to be out of his life forever, we all turned our backs on God. Withholding that punishment or wrath, being merciful, is because of God’s great love for us (See 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 for a description of God’s kind of love).   Notice in verse 5 that this was when we were all still disobedient, dead or separated from God. While we were all in that same slow boat to Hell (see “A Tale of Two Trees”) God offered us a renewed relationship with him (alive) through what Jesus had done for us. Jesus actions were enough for everyone (1 John 2:2), though not everyone will benefit (John 1:12; 3:16). God, as a being of love, will not force us, not a lot nor a little, to be with him. But he does want us back if we will turn around (repent) and come back. So being a part of God’s forever family isn’t based on being good enough, none of us are good enough and we cannot reverse that, it is something free that God is offering to us; it’s a free gift. In verse 5 Paul reminds the readers of this when he says they were saved by “grace”. That word “grace” means something that brings joy, a favor. The idea is of an undeserved gift. God is offering eternity with him as a gift to us. If we want to be a part of his existence, a part of his forever family, we do have to want the gift and take it. According to John 1:12 those who want that relationship with God back are the ones who get it back. But remember it’s a relationship and requires concern for the other person, in this case God.

Verse 6 continues the picture of this relationship with God. We are not only alive, back together with God, but we are invited to sit right next to Jesus. That is amazing. How often are we offended by someone, they apologize and we start being friends again but we still sort of have a grudge against them? Verse 7 tells us that this is permanent too. It says “in the ages to come”, that’s talking about from now and forever more. This “happily ever after” really is forever. This rich gift that he has given us will result in his kindness toward us forever.   Words used to describe what kindness means here include good, pleasant, and useful. God’s kindness is just what we need and we will like it.

In verse 8 Paul returns to his idea from verse 5. Here he again says that they were saved by a good and pleasurable thing from God. The verse specifically says it was a gift from God and the end of the verse 8 and the beginning of verse 9 says because it was an undeserved gift that we have no room to brag about the fact that are now part of God’s family. The fact that we do have a part in the whole process of having a relationship with God again is shown in the middle of the verse. We see in the middle that this gift doesn’t come through the mail to us but through faith. In Hebrews it says that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things we don’t see”. Living with God in eternity is something we haven’t seen. The fact that our broken relationship is now fixed is something we don’t really see. But when we heard all about Jesus, and believed the information enough to put our eternity on it, that is when faith happened and that channel or pipeline of faith allowed what Jesus did for us to flow into our lives. Verse 10 even contains the idea that God has done all of this. The end of verse 10 tell us that God made all the necessary preparations before hand so that we could live for him. He has saved us from the penalty of sin, he has made our relationship with him new again, and he is now helping us live for him. We are aid for and cleaned up by Jesus and filled up with God’s powerful presence helping us (the Holy Spirit, see “A Tale of Two Trees”). God will supply all we need to do the things that show how much we love and appreciate him. Before we lived influenced by our own selfish desires and by the Devil and by a world that followed those same influences (verses 2-3) not anymore.

God thank you for unselfishly giving yourself to help all mankind. Thank you for making your existence clear to each and every one of us. Thank you for making it clear that we have all failed to honor you. Thank you for making each and every one of us aware of the forever existence in front of us. Thank you for making us nervous about that eternity. Thank you for showing me the path to peace about my forever future, Jesus, the restorer of our relationship. Help me show other the path to peace for their forever future. Help me show them the richness of your mercy and the greatness of your love. Help them see how good and pleasant it is to be a part of your forever family. I hope and pray that many will turn back to you.

Ephesians 1:15-23. It’s been quite some time since I wrote the first two posts on Ephesians, sixteen months to the previous one actually. Not a very good record for someone wanting to write a daily blog. And before that it was another six months to the first post on Ephesians. Between those first tow posts there was a major change in my life, a big move, you can read about it in the second post. Between this post and that second one there has been another move, in a way actually two. As I mentioned in that second post we moved to Texas and started a new job, sort of, it wasn’t permanent at that time. That job became permanent (sort of) later that Fall but we still lived above the garage at my daughters house. As I said the job took up a lot of time and that didn’t change. After a year above the garage, in August of 2016, Cookie and I bought our first ever house. That was the first “another move”.   The second “move” came the Monday before Thanksgiving (2016). I was called into the office and let go from my job (fired if you like that term better). I was told I was a good project manager but not a good fit for the company. One businessman that I had worked with during that time told me I didn’t fit because I told the truth and that my boss didn’t want to hear the truth. As a Christian I think truth is important. I also think a good employee and good manager is truthful with their boss. I hope my words were always truthful and I always wanted them to be helpful to the company. Psalm 15 tells us that those who want to be a part of God’s family need to have integrity and be truthful. Colossians 3:22-23 tells slaves that they need to work hard for their masters with a good attitude tike they were working for God. I think the same thing goes for an employee. I’m sorry that the boss didn’t see my actions as helpful, I think it left us both in a bad situation. Almost immediately though God opened doors for me to be self employed again bringing work and possible work and good references from those who I had work with, so that is very cool. A third change during the past 16 months is that the church that Cookie and I have been going to since we came to Texas, asked me to start teaching Jr. High. Awesome! At least for me, I hope it is awesome for the students as well. So here we are again at the blog. I hope I can be more consistent at this from here on out.

It is interesting that I was being asked about doing projects for people even before I was fired. I met with one person with the idea of giving some helpful advise, after all I was very busy with my job, and that became my first project after I became self-employed again. I reread the first two posts to get back to speed on Ephesians and what I see in those 14 verses is that God is very active in our lives; He is watching, acting, planning, protecting and providing. We are special to Him and He cares for us. He has the power and is using it for us. He has provided a way for us to be a part of His forever family and given us power to live for Him (the Holy Spirit in us) and He has a plan (remember the economy thing) to fix the world (His household) through Jesus. Most Bible experts believe that the introduction or greeting of letters from that time included a hint at the reason the letter was being written. We are not done with the greeting of the letter yet but in those first 14 verses there is a lot of talk about God’s powerful actions toward those who would believe in what God was doing for them through Jesus (Ephesians 1:13). In these next nine verses Paul continues talking to the believers in Ephesus about the same things.

In verse 15 Paul says he has hear two things about these people (If you read the Intro to Ephesians you might remember that this seems to be a new group of believers in Ephesus that Paul hadn’t met); he had heard about their faith and their love for other believers. By the way, the Greek word translated “faith” is the root of the word “believed” in verse 13 and related to the word “faithful” in verse 1. Remember that theses word relate to being convinced about some truth and them acting upon that truth and trusting in it.

In verse 16 we see that when Paul talks to God (prayer) he thanks God for the faith of the Ephesian believers and that he is making requests from God for them.

In verse 17 we see what Paul asks God for to help the Ephesian believers’. Paul asks God to give them a “spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God.” The word translated wisdom has the idea of understanding how things really are. In James 1:5 we are told to ask God if we lack wisdom. Wise people in the Bible are usually those who are skilled and planning and doing something in an efficient way usually wisdom is not something we figure out but rather something that is passed on to us. “Revelation” is similar, the word means to uncover or reveal. In this case Paul is asking God to give wisdom and to uncover Himself; Paul wants the readers to really ‘see” God better.

In verses 18-19 Paul gets even more specific. He tells the readers that he has asked God to “enlighten the eyes of their hearts”. In this case heart isn’t talking about the persons real heart of even their physical life but their innermost self, like when we say we love someone or something with “all our heart”. Eyes have the same function here as our real eyes do except in this case they are not eyes to see physical things but a way for truth about God to enter our “hearts”. And Paul wants the “lights” turned way up so we can get all the details.   What are those details? Verses 18-19 tell us. Paul wants his readers to have hope, see that they are rich, and understand how much effort God is making for them.   These are all things he has already mentioned or hinted at.

In verse 18 we see that believers in Jesus should have hope because they have been called by God. The word called can also be translated “invited”. In Matthew 22:1-14 Jesus compared the “kingdom of God” (this is similar to the idea of God’s forever family) to a feast that a King for his son’s wedding. There was an original group that was invited but they decided not to come so the king sent his servants out into the streets to invite everyone they could find. During the feast the king noticed many were improperly dressed and he had them thrown out. In Matthew 22:14 Jesus ends the story by telling the listeners that many were called or invited but only a few were picked or chosen to stay. In that story we saw that many were called, the invitation really went out to everyone. The offer to be a part of God’s kingdom; His forever family is based on what Jesus did; he paid the penalty for sin and opened the door to God’s kingdom. According to 1 John 2:2 that offer was for everyone who ever lived. When the king went around the room and rejected some it was the ones who were not properly dressed, you might say they were not dressed “right”. Remember that this is a story to help the people Jesus was taking to understand the Kingdom of God, His forever family. The only way to be dressed “right” is by accepting what Jesus has done for us. Ephesians 1:4 tells us we were ”chosen” in Jesus and verse 13 told us that we received the promise of adoption after we heard the good news (gospel) about Jesus and put our trust in it (believed). The fact that God offers a place in his forever family should give hope especially to these readers who have believed the truth about Jesus because they have been chosen to stay. That’s cool because the ones who were asked to leave were thrown out into a place that was dark and miserable, that is a good description of anywhere that God decides not to be.

The next thing Paul want them to see they are rich or rather valuable. In verse 11 we saw that we have an inheritance, we will live eternally with God but here we see that we are God’s inheritance. The use of the word “glory” here is to show us that we are valuable, we are like a beautiful diamond that God is going to get to keep with himself forever.

Finally in verse 19 Paul was praying that the readers would see and understand how much effort God has put into making a way for believers to have a relationship with Him again. God has used His power and strength fir us, and remember this is the God who spoke and all the whole universe came into being. Evidently the believers in Ephesus were struggling. Something was testing their trust in God.  Everything in Paul’s greeting is there to show them how secure they are for eternity. The creator God had made them an offer that they had accepted and now they were His prized people. There home with Him in eternity was secure.

But wait there’s more. In Genesis 2:17 God told Adam, the first man, that he wasn’t to eat the fruit from one certain tree in the Garden of Eden. If Adam disobeyed and shoed disregard for God the penalty would be death; separation, both physical and spiritual. Adam, his world and his relationship with God would all be broken. Here in Ephesians 1:20 we see a very specific use of God’s power, the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus’ return to life after dying for us shows us that the penalty of death had been overcome. The resurrection was a little preview that the brokenness that sin (disobedience and disrespect toward God) brought into the world was overcome and one day all the brokenness would be repaired. The more though is that Jesus wasn’t just raised back to life but that he was given a seat of great power. Jesus was put on a throne to the right of God the Father’s throne (See “Three or One?”). In verses 21-22 we see that this position of power is greater that all others for all time into the eternal future.

In verse 22 to want to be very careful in how we read what Paul wrote. First notice that Jesus is head over all things. Next we want to notice that Jesus was given to the church. That word “church” means “called out ones”. It’s kind of like the ideas he has already used “called” and “chosen”; the church is the group of people who have put their eternal hope and trust in Jesus. But the part we want to be careful to see is that Jesus was given to the church as supreme king and ruler of everything in the universe.   Verse 23 tells us that the church is Jesus’ body. In these verses we aren’t seen as part of what Jesus rules but as part of Him and that all of His power exists to help us.

Two words stand out in my mind as we get to the end of Paul’s greeting for this letter: Power and position. Paul has talked a lot about God and His actions and His power. God has ultimate power and he has used it to help mankind. Not all of mankind benefits from the help though, only those who reach out and take it; those who believe in Jesus, not just as a person but as the eternal God-man who died to pay for their disobedience and disrespect toward God (sin). The believers there in Ephesus and through out all time right down to us here and now have a position; we are children of God, God’s own inheritance, secure in that position now and forever. We have been called, we have been chosen, we have been permanently marked (predestined, v. 5) for adoption into God’s forever family. That position can never change for any who have heard about Jesus and believed (convinced of the truth and committed to it) in who he is and what he has done for us.

The Ephesian believers loved God and cared for each other but they lived in uncertain times. They were part of a movement that came out of Judaism but was being rejected by most Jews. Those among them who were of Jewish descent were being rejected by their families. They were also part of a monotheistic (one god) movement, they believed in one God existing in three persons (God the father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, see “Three or One?”) an idea that offended almost everyone in their polytheistic (many gods) culture. Their first allegiance was to Jesus, they were part of an eternal kingdom and would not treat any human king as more than a power under Jesus and restricted by Him. This enraged many of the Roman rulers.   At the time the letter was written Caesar Nero was in the middle of his reign and he was known for his hatred of Christians. Paul wanted these believers to know that God’s power that gave them a position or place in God’s family was forever and no earthly powers could change that, their position was permanent. His Greeting ends on a very good note as the “body of Christ” we are the “fullness of Him who fills everything”. We not only have a permanent place in God’s forever family but we have a part to play here and now.

It is amazing that the Creator of the universe used his power to create us knowing that we would turn against Him. It’s even more amazing that He would have a plan to save us in spite of our rebellion.   It’s more amazing yet that the plan involved Him limiting himself to a human existence and then suffering within that existence. After all of that he doesn’t force Himself on us but presents Himself to us and invites us to believe and be a part of His forever family. And then we don’t sit as trophies in his museum but have the opportunity to be helpers in His kingdom inviting others to join in. I also appreciate it that God watches and understands what we are going thorough and speaks to us where we are.

God thank you for your love. Thank you for your wisdom. Thank you for the hope you offer; you call and will follow through with you power for all who respond. Thank you for treasuring me, for treasuring us, so much. Thank you. Help me see and understand and trust and share the good news with all I meet.