Monday, January 16, 2012
Ephesians 1:1-4
Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus, and faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,...
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6 comments:
Wow, Kim. You were up at 4 to make today's post. Kuddos to you, girlfriend. I have been bursting with excitement to have some direction/focus in my devotion time. Life has been unusual in the past month and I find my devotions were just attempts to cling to God but no direction or growth. How refreshing to start anew this morning with purpose in His Word. This may sound strange, but it felt so good to write everything down. :) That is usually the way I communicate the best with the Lord. It keeps me focused. It's like a letter between the Lord and myself. Ahhhhhh. I feel so refreshed this morning. Time to tackle the day ahead with a renewed strength. Are you smiling ladies? He has "blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ." Yahoo!
May God fill you with strength and courage today.
Sonja
One of my observations from today's scripture was down in verse 4: "He chose us...to be holy and blameless." What a great reminder that nothing we do can earn God's salvation or make us deserve it. It's something that he knew forever ago and already covered our sins. It's something we know, but good to be reminded of.
And what a great way to start the day today!
Help me to live a more Holy life for you Lord! Thank you for choosing me.
well, first I need to tell you all that last night our computer crashed which is the second time it has happened since its short existence. We don't even use it for that much stuff! Is that Satan working even in the midst of a simple little accountability group via the Internet!?! Fortunately, we have our VERY OLD computer that I was able to hook up and get leisurely walking (yeah, not running...just walking and at a snail's pace)! Ok, well obviously I defeated Satan as I am commenting on this blog! Yeah!
Second thing, confession time - NO, I did not wake up at 4 to make today's post. I have all of our verses typed out and scheduled to post at 4 AM each day as I know some of our gals wake up really early and I wanted to make sure they were able to comment and not have to wait for the post to appear so you all MUST sleep in until at least 4! :)
Like Sonja, I really enjoyed writing down the verses! I think this blog and journal I have going for this study will be great to look back on!
vs.3-4 really made me reflect on the blessing of Jesus' presence in my life and all the blessings that He has brought about through my relationship with Him and to really try to focus on those instead of the struggles the so easily come to mind fist when I go to pray.
Ok, now I must confess which you all will think that I am nuts BUT I woke up at 3 this morning and could not sleep. I laid in bed WIDE AWAKE until 3:30. Why? I was SO EXCITED about this new study that I couldn't wait any longer! Even reading you ladies' comments gives me the goosebumps. THANK YOU for the encouragement you have been to me already! The Lord has blessed me!
Now, the Lord showed me the coolest thing about these first 4 verses...and especially v. 2! I found v.2 as a connector between the 1st verse and the next ones. Grace to you and peace from God our Father...it's a very common greeting by Paul and to be honest, I would have just read over it and thought nothing of it really. BUT, think on this...the greeting always appears in that order...grace to you and peace from God. Well, I ran across this commentary as I was doing some background study on Ephesians which states, "Grace is the work of the Father by which salvation from sin comes. Peace is the condition of the believer's heart after grace has done its work. They are in that order because there can be no peace in the heart until grace has done its work." By the way, peace is defined as a state of deep satisfaction and settledness. The challenge I got was...Am I deeply satisfied because of the grace our Father gave to us? If so, am I living with the reputation of being "the faithful in Christ Jesus" as Paul possessed as his reputation (v.1) and am I living a life full of praise and thankfulness for He has given me every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places(v.3) through Jesus because, for some reason, He chose me (v.4) (and you)?
I can't help but SMILE! :o)
Kim
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