MONDAY 23rd
Ephesians 3:14-21
NIV (v17) – ‘. . . so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love . . .’
ESV (v17) – ‘. . . so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love . . .’
Today we continue with the points I made yesterday.
1) That they may be strengthened with power (v16)
2) That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith (v17)
3) That they may be rooted and grounded in love (17-18)
4) That they may know the love of Christ and the fulness of God (v19)
5) That all the glory goes to the Lord Jesus (v20-21)
That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith – We know from Ephesians 2:8 that it is by grace we are saved and through faith, which is a gift from God, and that same faith enables us to know and believe that Christ dwells in our hearts. I touched on the heart in an earlier devotion, and spiritually speaking it is the place in which Christ chooses to reside, thus we say ‘we have given our hearts to Jesus’ this is a declaration that we have given all that we have and are to him. And in return he comes to dwell in us. It is mystery that we can say that we are ‘in Christ’ and at the same time he is in us, which is the hope of glory. (Colossians 1:27) Also Colossians 2:9 tells us that in him, (that is Jesus) the whole fulness of deity dwells, that means that when Christ comes to dwell in our hearts the fulness of deity dwells within us, what an amazing thought! This is what Paul continues to pray for in Ephesians 3:19 ‘. . . that you may be filled with all the fulness of God’. This means that as the people of God we carry the presence of God within us, in 1 Corinthians 3:16–17 we read, ‘Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.’ As carriers of God’s presence, or people within whose hearts the Lord Jesus dwells we are the temple of God, and as the temple of God we need to do all that we can to keep ourselves clean, holy, unstained from the world. (‘What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.’ 2 Corinthians 6:16–18) This reminds me of the two occasions when Jesus entering the temple and overturned the tables and thew out the money changers, (John 2:13-17, Luke 19:45-46) it makes me look into my own life, which is to be the temple of the living God and wonder what Jesus may need to overturn and to throw out! May we by God’s grace be clean channels fit for purpose, fit to be temples, fit for the presence of God.