Author: emmanuelpcgateshead

MONDAY June 24^th

 

Ephesians 3:18-19

‘. . . may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.’

 

The hymn that I mentioned in our previous devotion continues with:

 

Could we with ink the ocean fill,

And were the skies of parchment made;

Were every stalk on earth a quill,

And every man a scribe by trade;

To write the love of God above

Would drain the ocean dry;

Nor could the scroll contain the whole,

Though stretched from sky to sky.

 

Oh, love of God, how rich and pure! How measureless and strong! It shall forever more endure—the saints and angels’ song.

 

Isn’t the love of Jesus something wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, isn’t the love of Jesus something wonderful, wonderful it is to me. I could burst into so many songs concerning his love!

 

Is his love wonderful to you as you read this devotion? There is no love like the love of Jesus—never to fade or fall, till into the fold of the peace of God he has gathered us all. Jesus’ love, precious love, boundless and pure and free; Oh, turn to that love weary wandering soul: Jesus pleadeth with thee!

 

Most of you are aware of my friend Ray, it was my joy when I led him to the Lord to read to him a few passages of Scripture, and one portion in particular which I read again with him in the home and am going to be reading at his funeral is from Romans 8:37-39, verses I always think of when I arrive at the text verses we have had today, Gods love is such that we can say as we have come to accept Jesus as our Saviour and Lord:

 

‘No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.’

FRIDAY June 21^st

 

Ephesians 3:18-19

‘. . . may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.’

 

I guess we are familiar with the children’s song, ‘The love of Jesus is so wonderful . . . so high, you can’t get over it, so wide you can’t get round it. So deep you can’t get under it, oh wonderful love’, (since I prepared this devotion, we sang it last Sunday morning). Well, Paul is not just wanting us to have spiritual strength to understand something of the vastness of God’s love, but also everything else that pertains to it. I casually asked a question a few weeks ago, on a Sunday evening in our service as to when we think of every benefit that is ours as believers, which would we put at the top of the list. His mercy, his grace, his forgiveness, his faithfulness toward us etc. I suggested and still suggest that top of the list would be his love for us for it is because of his love for mankind that we have come to know all these other blessings.

 

And I readily admit. His love is so immense, so great, that I cannot fully grasp everything about it, but I am grateful for it, the fact that he loved ME and gave his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ to be the propitiation for MY sin! Yes, I have made it personal to myself, but you do the same, God loved you so much, he loved me so much, his love which we cannot fully comprehend is such that it has brought us into a living powerful relationship with him.

 

His love is so high, so wide, so deep that we cannot get away from it, and if you are reading this devotion today and you do not yet know Jesus as your Saviour, understand this, God loves you, he has shown it by sending his Son into this world, Jesus loves you, and he has proven it by dying for you at Calvary, taking all the wrath and punishment that you deserve for your sin so that if you are willing by faith to come and to believe in him and to accept him you can be completely pardoned, forgiven, saved from the wrath that is to come, and you can know what it is to be on the road that leads to heaven, to spend eternity with him.

 

In the words of another well-known song,

 

The love of God is greater far,

Than tongue or pen can ever tell;

It goes beyond the highest star,

And reaches to the lowest hell . . .

 

Oh, love of God, how rich and pure!

How measureless and strong!

It shall for evermore endure—

The saints, and angels’ song.

 

THURSDAY June 20^th

 

Ephesians 3:17

‘. . . so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love. . .’

 

The latter part of this verse, ‘that you, being rooted and grounded in love’. Is it possible that Paul was using a play on words here, using two words that help us to see how established we need to be regarding our Christian faith. The first word ‘rooted’ points us to being well rooted like a plant or a tree and grounded being firmly placed on a solid foundation like a building.

 

Rooted in love, grounded in love. I have had difficulty this year in finding a decent compost for the garden, most of it just seems to be too bitty, and difficult to get anything to grow let alone to become well rooted in it. That was until someone I know recommended to me a different compost and told me where I could get it from, (in fact they got me the first three bags) and it made the difference to my planting and growing. We can try to root our lives in so many things, but they will never ever cause us to grow as we should grow as believers, we need to ensure that we are rooted in love, but not any kind of love, rooted in the love of God.

 

Now, I have also laid some patio this year, it is still a work in progress, to make it easier, I have relied heavily on a sand and gravel foundation, but to ensure that it is firmly established, I am going to have to use some cement to ensure that it is grounded well. Remember what Jesus said about the wise man and the foolish man during his sermon on the mount, and if we want to be wise as Christians, we need to make sure that our lives are grounded firmly on the solid rock of God’s love, for his love will never fail nor crumble.

 

Being rooted well in the love of God will ensure that we become like well-established trees as we see in Psalm 1, it will promote our personal growth to become those whose leaf will not wither and will produce fruit in season. Rooted well in the love of God we will become firmly established; it will give us stability when the storms of life blow against us.

 

But as Paul continues, he says in verses 18-19 that as we are well rooted and firmly grounded, we will have strength that will help us to comprehend more fully the wonder of the love of Christ and to be filled with the fulness of God.

WEDNESDAY June 19^th

 

Ephesians 3:17

‘. . . so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love. . .’

 

Now, I have already mentioned some of the reasons why we need to be strengthened with power through his Spirit, but here Paul says,

 ‘so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith’.

 

The heart is the central part of our being, and we use this phrase about being born again, ‘I asked Jesus into my heart’. It means that we have asked Jesus to come and to take up residence in our lives, to be at the centre of who we are and in all that we seek to do. It is as if the heart is the throne in which we allow Jesus to reign as Lord.

 

The heart is often mentioned in Scripture, and we will turn to some of the references.

 

We are encouraged ‘to love the LORD your God with ALL your heart, and with ALL your soul and with ALL your might’, Deuteronomy 6:5, Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30.

 

We are also encouraged to ‘trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding’, Proverbs 3:5, both Iain and I spoke from these verses on the same Sunday recently, Iain referring to the word heart appearing 3 times in the first 6 verses of Proverbs 3.

 

An important one is found in Matthew 6:21 when Jesus was talking about the importance of where we lay up our treasure, he says ‘For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.’ This means that what we set our hearts upon will become our primary focus. And surely, if we follow the first of the references mentioned, our hearts should be set upon the things of God, set upon the things that matter for eternity and not upon the things that are temporal. It doesn’t mean that the temporal doesn’t matter, Jesus balances it all out for us by reminding us that if we ‘seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, all these (the other) things will be added to you’, Matthew 6:33.

 

I am going to mention one more, well it is going to lead to an extra one afterwards!  if you have time, look up some other heart references yourself, but this final one is so apt for the troublesome days in which we are finding ourselves, Jesus said ‘Let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me’, John 14:1. Jesus can bring peace into our troubled hearts as we learn to lean on him and to trust in him fully. Paul puts it this way ‘. . . The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus’, Philippians 4:5-7.

 

The One who we have invited into our hearts, is not only the Saviour, the Lord and the King, he is also the Prince of Peace – imagine it, that he is the one who sits on the throne of your heart.

TUESDAY June 18^th

 

Ephesians 3;16

‘. . . that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being . . .’

 

I love those few words in this verse, ‘according to the riches of his glory’. Without jumping to far ahead, a few verses later Paul says this ‘Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think’, together these verses help us to understand that we can never out ask God, because a) he has an abundant store of riches in glory and b) whatever we ask, he is super abundantly able to do even more.

 

Our God is rich in every way! He pours out his love and it will never run out. He pours out his grace and it will never run out. He pours out his mercy and it will never run out. He giveth and giveth and giveth again says the words of the hymn writer.

 

This is our God, so if we come to ask him to be strengthened with power through his Spirit, we know that his power will never run out, so we can come for more power for each morning that we wake up! More power to equip us, more power to strengthen us, more power to accomplish whatever his will may be for us as we walk through each day. Not one of us needs to be powerless in our Christian Walk because we have an all-powerful God, ready to strengthen us with power by his Spirit according to his riches of glory.

 

We note also it says in our text, ‘in the inner man’, that is in our spirit / soul, that part of us that has already been quickened or made alive again the day we were saved. (Ephesians 2:4-5)

 

I wonder how much time in a day do we give to ensuring that we look after the body in comparison to looking after or caring for our soul? Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:16 ‘So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.’ We can put all our effort in making sure we look good physically, but we cannot stop the inevitable, age comes, death will arrive, what is important is that we put every effort into ensuring that the inner man is being renewed day by day.

 

Do you need to be strengthen, we all need to be strengthened, then spend some time today at the source of the abundant supply, the throne where the riches of God’s grace can be found.

 

Philippians 4:13 ‘I can do all things through him who strengthens me.’

MONDAY June 17^th

 

We come today to the second section of verses in Ephesians which consist of a prayer that Paul made for the saints.

 

Ephesians 3:14–21

‘For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.’

 

In the previous prayer that Paul had prayed for the saints it was for them to understand something about the immeasurable greatness of God’s power towards them, here he prays that they may be strengthened with power through his Spirit.

 

Now, I have been on my Christian journey for 55 years, having come to faith at the age of nine. I have spent 50 of them preaching the word of God, having the first opportunity at 14. I have also spent 45 of them in leadership in various churches, as a deacon, elder and then pastor. Yet, today as I read these verses I readily and willingly confess I need that according to the riches of his glory, that God would strengthen me with power by his Spirit in my inner being! The more I have journeyed the more I have realised that it never ever can be by my might, nor by my power, but by the Spirit of the Lord.

 

Over the last few weeks, as the weather has been improving, (well slightly improving) I have been able to get more done in the garden. I have planted more beans and peas this year, and I have two choices, plant them and leave them or plant them and care for them. I have obviously chosen the second option, which means that the beans and the peas need support to enable them to grow, to be strengthened and to produce a harvest. So, I have put canes in the ground, so that they can be either tied to them or they can eventually naturally wind around them. The more they grow, the more they need the support otherwise they would just fall, collapse to the ground and be of no use.

 

We, each one of us as we discovered in the devotions last week, are the body of Christ, of which he himself is the head. Can I put it this way, we have been planted into the family of God. We need support, otherwise we would falter and fall. Being a part of the body means that we need each other for support, that is why regular fellowship is important. We have the word of God as another important means of support, to feed us, develop us. We have the means of prayer, communion with our heavenly Father, but in the context of these verses we have the help, the support of the Holy Spirit, he comes as a means of God’s grace to strengthen us with power in the inner man.

 

Now, excuse the way that I am applying it, but just as the beans and the peas need the canes to support them, the canes are also a means to empower them, to enable them to grow and to develop.

 

I want to be attached to a place of regular fellowship with others, I want my life to be attached to the word of God, I want to be attached to whatever God has made available to give me the support, strength and empowerment that I need as a believer to be who God wants me to be, that my life will be fruitful for him. I want that he will strengthen me with power by his Spirit. Can we all say this, do we truly desire it.

FRIDAY June 14^th

 

Ephesians 1:22-23

‘And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.’

 

We have arrived at the last verse that falls in this section that covers this the first of Paul’s prayers for the Ephesian believers.

 

As he began to say what he was praying for them, it would seem that he has got carried away with or excited about everything that God had done for them through the Lord Jesus Christ, and about Jesus himself. And he turns his direction from the heavenly places and the future back to the earth, and he sees the wonderful vision or picture of the church as being the body of which Christ is the head. In other words, before God’s purpose is finally realised in the age which is to come (verse 21) there is still much to be done in the present age. And it involves Christ, and it includes all who have come to faith in him, you, me, each one who by trusting in Christ have been incorporated into the church, which is his body here on earth. And it is Christ, the one who is seated at the right hand of the Father who is the head of the church. It is from him we receive our spiritual health and vitality.

 

I want us to go back to verse 19 which was all about the ‘greatness of his power toward us who believe’ and how we see that the power was seen being demonstrated in the resurrection and exaltation of Christ. Well, we continue to see that the greatness of this power is also demonstrated or seen in the mystery of the church. That God would take men and women who were utterly depraved, sinful, vile, and through the powerful preaching of the cross would not only unite us to Christ, but also unite us toward one another! We have become his family, therefore brothers and sisters within that family, or as Peter puts it, we have become living stones that are being built up together to become a spiritual house, or as we have already seen we have become members of one body with Christ as the head.

 

The evidence around us in the world is that multi-culturalism fails in so many ways, there are so many schisms and divisions, but such is the power of God that is at work in the many ways we have already mentioned as we have covered these verses, the cross unites men and women together from all over the globe! What politicians fail to manage, what globalism fails to manage, what the United Nations fails to manage, what even equality rules which are fudged and changed as soon as some new fad or ideology seems to surface, fail to manage, the cross has succeeded in doing! We who are saved are all one in Christ Jesus, and what is more, such is the wonder of this incredible power at work that the day is coming when we shall all be together, an innumerable number gathered around the throne worshipping God, these verses are a wonderful portrayal of the incredible power ‘And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth”’, Revelation 5:9-10.

THURSDAY June 13^th

 

Ephesians 1:21

 

‘. . .far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.’

 

Paul continues to remind us that Christ was not only raised from the dead, ascended and exalted, but that he is ‘far above all rule and authority and power and dominion’. He holds the highest place, the highest honour, the highest name, the highest position of power!

 

This is our Saviour! This is our Redeemer! This is our Lord! This is the one whom we are looking for as our coming King, who promised that he would come again, so that we who believe may be with him forever.

 

Yes, we see the power of almighty God at work in creation, just look up at the splendour of the heavens, look around you at the splendour and the beauty of the birds, the trees and the flowers, see it as we see the rolling hills and the mighty sea as it splashes its waves upon the beaches, we see it at work in the sustaining of all he has created, we see it at work in a thousand and one other ways, but surely, we rejoice in that his power has been at work and is still at work in bringing about our eternal redemption. His power which raised Christ from the dead, working in our hearts and in our lives making us to become more like Christ every day.

 

But let’s keep reminding ourselves that as we see so much going on all around us today that speaks against God, which rejects the authority and the rule of God, which seeks to push God aside and fill the void with anything and everything else, that he is still in control, his power is unstoppable, and everyone who seeks to reject his word, his ways and his wonderful work of redemption will one day have to bow the knee and confess ‘that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father’.

 

God is never going to go away, it would be an impossibility, for he is omnipresent, we cannot flee from his presence, but if you are reading this devotion and you have rejected God, or you continue to reject God, it doesn’t stop him from existing, he always has been and he always will be, and although at this moment of time he offers you salvation through the powerful message of the cross, one day that opportunity will come to an end, but the sad thing is this, if you have rejected him now, in the present, when the moment comes when you will be found standing before him on the day of judgment he will turn to you and say ‘Depart from me, I never knew you.’ You will be eternally separated from the presence of God, and it will have been your choice, for today he offers you salvation. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.

WEDNESDAY June 12^th

 

Ephesians 1:19–20

 

‘. . .and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places’

 

As we continue to consider this incredible power that has been made available to us, Paul says that it was not only demonstrated in the tomb, by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, but it was also demonstrated by the very fact that after being raised, God seated Christ at his right hand in the heavenly places. I recall a song we used to sing ‘Far above all, far above all, God has exalted him far above all, crown him as Lord, at his feet humbly fall, God has exalted him, far above all.’

 

This verse reminds us that there is a man in the glory and his name is Jesus! And such was the power of God at work in him while he walked this world as a man, he sinned not, such was the power of God he could go to the cross to be the unblemished sacrifice for the sins of the world, such was the power of God at work that after having died on the cross and being buried, that death had no hold on him, ‘death could not keep it’s prey, Jesus my Saviour, he tore the bars away, Jesus my Lord . . . up from the grave he arose’. And such was the power of God, he ascended back into the presence of God as the one who had conquered death, defeated Satan and provided salvation for all who would believe and when he sat down at the right hand of God, he was given the name that is above every name, he has been declared and still is and always will be Lord! See the power of God at work meant that absolutely nothing was going to stop, prevent, or destroy that which God had purposed to do, way before even the foundation of the world was laid.

 

Recently I purchased a top that across the front has the word ‘Unstoppable’.

 

God’s power is such that it is unstoppable, God is unstoppable, he will do all that he has decreed and no one nor nothing will stop him. The resurrection and exaltation of Jesus is the proof we have. And the wonder is this, he makes his power available to each one of us who believes. Therefore, as we come to be filled with and to keep being filled with the Spirit, with his power we also should be unstoppable!

TUESDAY June 11^th

 

Ephesians 1:19–20

 

‘. . .and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places’

 

Let me repeat where I left off previously, although re-worded, God has made his power available to us who have believed to enable us to live victoriously in this world.

 

HIS power, God knows we cannot do it in our own strength! Power to be able to live for Christ, power to live according to the Spirit and not the flesh, power to fight the good fight of the faith, power to stand firm, power to say no when the world demands us to conform, power to overcome the evil one, power to make it to the finishing line, our eyes firmly fixed upon Jesus.

 

And Paul uses as the example of what this power is like as being the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead—now, when Jesus died, he was placed into a tomb and a stone was placed in the opening to block it off and a seal was placed around it. But it didn’t stop or prevent the power of God, for in the darkness of the grave, Jesus the light of the world was raised back to life! No medical intervention, no magic, no! The power of God was at work, defying all the laws of nature, defying all the logic of men, defying the powers of darkness and demonstrating that without any shadow of doubt that God has power over all things.

 

Now, I am sure we have all seen some incredible things that would cause us to be astounded, but the resurrection of Jesus is the most astounding thing that has ever happened. Now, some would argue, ‘Ah but you didn’t witness it, you have only read about it’. That is true, but I believe it! And the Scripture says that the ones who are blessed are those who have not seen yet believe!

 

Paul wants us to know that this incredible power that was demonstrated in the tomb is being made available towards us who believe. Later in this same epistle, Paul encourages us to ‘be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might’, or as the NIV puts it ‘be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.’ (6:10)

 

I wonder if sometimes too often we live our lives as if we are running on low voltage batteries, or rechargeable batteries that are running low, rather than allowing the Holy Spirit to indwell us and to empower us, for to remind us again, it is not by our own might, nor by our own power—I can assure you that this way I would get absolutely nowhere—but it is by his power and his power alone we will live victoriously.