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Devotion June 5th

WEDNESDAY June 5th

 

Ephesians 1:17-18

 

‘. . .may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you . . . ’

 

Well, the first part of what Paul prays for the believers is found in verse 17 of Ephesians, that he ‘may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened’, the reason being ‘that you may know’ and he continues with what he wants them to know.

 

So, the first part of the request is that they may receive ‘the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him’. Note that it is Spirit with a capital S, that is he is referring to the Holy Spirit and he is describing something of who the Holy Spirit is, he is the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation, and as we receive the Holy Spirit this way as the NIV puts it, it is that ‘you may know him better’.

 

The Holy Spirit helps to bring us into a greater understanding of who God is, and however long we may have been on our Christian journey, we can all come to know God even more, so we need as did the Ephesian church to be given the Spirit of wisdom and revelation. Because this wisdom and knowledge comes from the Holy Spirit, it is therefore supernatural wisdom, it is supernatural revelation, it is far superior to anything we can attain to in the natural realm.

 

Being a people of the Holy Spirit, we have had our hearts enlightened, we can understand things that those who are not saved cannot understand, this is because of the Holy Spirit being the Spirit of wisdom and revelation. In 1 Corinthians 2:9-12 Pauls says this, ‘But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.’

 

I can only answer for myself, concerning how little or much I may understand about God, but I am sure that just as Paul prayed for the Ephesians so we need to pray for ourselves and for one another, that we will receive in abundance the Spirit of wisdom and revelation to enable us to know God even more.

 

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Devotion June 4th

TUESDAY June 4th

 

Ephesians 1:15-16

‘For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers’.

 

It has been difficult to know how to break down this prayer in verses 17-23, and in the verses which we will eventually get to in chapter 3:14-21, but we see that Paul desired for the believers to know what it was to grow in Christ and to develop into spiritual maturity.

 

To note first is that he addresses his prayer to ‘the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory’. At first, if you haven’t stopped to think about this, why the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, when Jesus himself is also God? I am going to answer this two ways, these are my own thoughts from my personal meditation on these verses, there might be other reasons, but the first I considered is that by praying to ‘the God of our Lord Jesus Christ’, it is a declaration that the God of Jesus is the true and the living God, as opposed to the many other gods that the unbelieving folk in Ephesus and the surrounding areas called out to. They, that is the other gods were unable to answer, for they were mere idols.

 

Secondly, I am going to see it by being linked to what Paul says in Timothy concerning Jesus as being the one who is the mediator between man and God, and what is written in Hebrews which is that we have access to the Father through the Son, who has become our great high priest and Paul knew that we come to God through the Lord Jesus Christ and he is making this prayer in Ephesians to God, that is the true and the living God, the Father and through Jesus the Son.

 

These are the verses: 1 Timothy 2:5 ‘For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus’ and Hebrews 4:14-16 ‘For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.’

 

Before we move on, we have the same access! Because the One who Paul knew as his great high priest, is also our great high priest. His name is Jesus, he is the One who has made access for us into the presence of almighty God, he is the One who has given us permission to come and to call on his Father, God, our Father who is in heaven.

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Devotion June 3rd

MONDAY June 3rd  

 

As we return to the devotions, after a short break, I start by reminding us of the verses we were looking at, and to remind us that Paul was praying for the believers in the Ephesian church.

 

Ephesians 1:16-23

‘For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 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, 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. 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.’

 

In this prayer, Paul takes us from his concern for the church v16, to the One who is the head of the church v23, the Lord Jesus Christ and in between reminds us that he, that is Christ has been exalted to the highest place and is far above all rule and authority and power and dominion.

 

This is a good time to remind ourselves that with all that we see going on around us in this world, political strife, nations in strife with one another, society seemingly crumbling around us, that as we read in Philippians 2:9-11 ‘Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,  and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.’

 

There is One who is above all these things and is in control, his name is Jesus, and he reigns over all. But we will get to this again when we get to the verses. In our next devotion we will begin to break down and look at what it was that Paul prayed for on behalf of the believers. Since I originally wrote this devotion, we in the UK are heading toward a General Election, we must seek direction regarding this and pray that just as God’s will is done in heaven so it will also be known on earth, in our nation.

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Devotion May 24th

FRIDAY May 24th

 

Ephesians 1:16

‘I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.’

 

Paul was undoubtably a man of prayer, again on a recent Sunday I took us through some scriptures that covered the subject of prayer, in particular corporate prayer and from Acts 16 I mentioned two examples concerning Paul and prayer.

 

The first was from Acts 16:13 ‘And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together.’ It would seem that it was important for Paul and his companions to partake in prayer with others, the second example is later in the same chapter after Paul along with Silas had been arrested and put into prison, it says in verse 25 ‘About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them’, and if you are familiar to the account, you know what happened, there was a sudden earthquake, which eventually led to the jailor and his family coming to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But there is a third reference to prayer, it comes in between the two I have mentioned, but chronologically actually happened before they had net with the believers for prayer by the river side.

 

It is in verse 16 which says, ‘As we were going to the place of prayer’, Paul then gives a report of what happened, they met a slave girl who had a spirit of divination. The result was that she was delivered, and this was what eventually what led to them being arrested and put in prison.

 

Prayer was integral to who Paul was and what he did as a servant of God. He met with a prayer group, he prayed when he was in a difficult situation, and as we have seen from our text from Ephesians he was actively praying for the believers.

 

This is not meant to be a series about prayer, but it is a reminder of the power of and the importance of prayer, both personal prayer and collective prayer.

 

Returning to our text verse, in the ESV there are cross references to Romans1:9-10 and 2 Timothy 1:3 where we see again Paul’s concern for others expressed in prayer, in Romans it is for the local Church, in Timothy it is for an individual, he was and so should we be concerned through prayer for us as a collective body of believers, the local church and also for each individual that makes up the local church.

 

May we be a prayerful church, continually upholding one another before the throne of grace so that each one of us will receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

 

We are away next week, Monday through to Friday with some of our family for a holiday together, so the devotions will return on Monday June 3rd.

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Devotion May 23rd

THURSDAY May 23rd

 

Ephesians 1:16

‘I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.’

 

This sentence here in verse 16, was the reason behind why I originally read the verses from this chapter recently in our Wednesday prayer meeting. First to highlight that Paul remembered the Ephesian believers in his prayers and secondly that he continually gave thanks to God for them.

 

Paul would have been a very busy man, continually on the move, pioneering and planting new churches, writing to them, sometimes from prison as he was being harassed and persecuted for his faith, and yet he still ensured that he cared for those who had come to faith as individuals, and he ensured that he cared for the local churches that had been formed as a result of his apostolic efforts. He cared by praying for them and for thanking God for them.

 

Going back to that Wednesday evening, which was May 8th, we spent the time praying for each one that attends our local church here in Gateshead, those who are regular in attendance and those who are unable to attend owing to health. We also prayed for the unbelieving family members of those who attend. We put into practice what we saw Paul giving as an example here in Ephesians 1. Going back to the previous verse where Paul talked about their faith and their love, it reminds us that the love we should have for one another should also prompt us to give thanks for one another and to pray for one another.

 

We don’t even need to know every single detail about one another, we don’t need to know the specific needs that each one may have, we simply need to show our care and concern by praying for one another.

 

I want to take this as an opportunity to say thank you for each one that prays for me, and for Elaine. But I also want to take this opportunity to encourage us to pray for the younger generation, the children and those who are in their teens, that they will know the protection of God’s power over their lives during these difficult days in which we are living. When I look back to when I was a teenager, and that is a long time ago now, I was never faced with so many challenges and difficulties as to which they are faced with today. May our prayer be that each one of the teens and children will discover what it is to trust in the Lord with all their heart and not to lean on their own understanding. Praying that each one of them will acknowledge the Lord in all their ways so that they will know what it is for their paths to be made straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6).

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Devotion May 22nd

WEDNESDAY May 22nd

 

Ephesians 1:15

‘For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints. . .’

 

The second reason Paul gives for wanting to pray for the Ephesian believers is ‘because of your love toward all the saints’.

 

Our faith not only brings us into a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, and with God whom we can now call our Father, who art in heaven, it also brings us into a new family, the family of God which is made up of every blood brought believer, we have become the Church which is the body of Christ, we have become living stones that have been joined to one another and one of the things that keeps us bound is love and what Paul could see in the church at Ephesus should be seen in every gathering of local Church, ‘love toward all the saints’.

 

Jesus had said to his disciples that he was giving to them a new commandment and it was that they were to love one another, John 15:12. In fact the measure of our love for one another is not based on the same feelings that we have regarding human or earthly love but should be based upon the measure of the love of God. Again, in John 15 Jesus said that as the Father had loved him, so he had loved the disciples, and that was also to be the basis upon which we love each other. The love of God is the purest love because he himself is love. It is a selfless love, it is a love that gives, it is a love that cares, it is a love that is eternal.

 

In his epistles, John, when writing them, must have often thought back to this commandment of Jesus to love one another, for he touches on the theme a number of times,  in 1 John 3:1 he speaks about the manner or the kind of love that the Father has given to us, then in in verse 14 he says that we know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brothers, in 1 John 4:7 he calls us to love one another for love is from God, and it shows that we have been born of God and know God. Then in verse 11 he says ‘Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another’.

 

Faith and love the apostle Paul says, it is as if they cannot be separated, if we have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, it surely must be evident by the love we have for one another.

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Devotion May 21st

TUESDAY May 21st

 

Ephesians 1:15

‘For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints. . .’

 

The words ‘For this reason’, could be looking back over what Paul has already written in chapter 1, which is all about the spiritual blessings which believers have been blessed with in Christ (v3). For in verses 13-14 Paul reminds the believers that they had heard the word of truth, and believed in Jesus and therefore had been sealed with the promised Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of the inheritance until we acquire possession of it. He wants to pray for them because of their being in Christ, but more specifically I think that ‘For this reason’ points to the two reasons he gives for praying for them, 1) Because he had heard of their faith in the Lord Jesus, 2) Because he had heard of their love toward the saints. Because of your faith and your love, he says ‘I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers’, (v16).

 

Verses 3-14 of Ephesians chapter 1 are just one sentence in the Greek, thankfully broken down into the English for us in several verses, and one author has commented that they are verses of praise, whereas the next verses, 15-23 are verses of prayer.

 

But I want to highlight the two reason. Their faith in the Lord Jesus and their love towards all the saints.

 

Faith in the Lord Jesus is essential before we can come to know the many spiritual blessings that he has spoken about in the previous verses. It is only once we have come to faith in the Lord Jesus that we know what it is to be in Christ. It is only once we have come to faith in the Lord Jesus that we are incorporated into what Paul terms as the church, which is his body later in this prayer in verse 22-23.

 

I grew up under some who taught that a person doesn’t become a part of the body of Christ until they have been filled with or baptised in the Holy Spirit, I cannot subscribe to that, I believe that inclusion into the church, becoming a part of the body of Christ happens immediately that a man or women is born again, but the desire should be for each member to be filled with the Holy Spirit. In Ephesians 3, Paul says in verse 6, ‘This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.’ How are we members of the same body? Paul says through the gospel, that is through coming to faith, personal belief and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. And although I readily accept the promise of the Father which is to be baptised in the Spirit, the Spirit is already given to everyone the moment they believe, we are born again by the Spirit, there cannot be believers who are in the body of Christ and another group of believers who are not in the body of Christ. We are all one in Christ Jesus.

 

Faith in the Lord Jesus is the key. Can you say that you know that you are ‘In Christ’, have you come to the place of saving faith, having believed on the Lord Jesus Christ.

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Devotion May 20th

MONDAY May 20th

 

As we start a new week, we are also going to move to another of Paul’s letters and if you were in our prayer meeting just a couple of weeks ago, or at the church the Sunday morning following, you will be familiar with the verses I am going to turn to. They are two sections from Ephesians which I read from on both occasions, and suggested in the prayer meeting that they would make a good sermon, but rather than do that I am going to take us through them over the next few days.

 

Both sections of verses are prayers that Paul made for the saints at Ephesus. For today, we will use the devotion to read the verses again, in the devotions that follow I will just quote the section that I will be looking at.

 

Ephesians 1:15-23

‘For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 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, 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. 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.’

 

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.’

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Devotion May 17th

FRIDAY May 17th

 

1 Corinthians 1:30–31

‘And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”’

 

The final word in these verses reminds us that Jesus has become from God our redemption. Oftentimes, theologians seem to argue or discuss the order of events in our being saved, but to me the wonder is that we can be saved and have been saved as we have come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And Paul brings us to the point of reminding us that it is Christ Jesus who is our redemption.

 

In Ephesians 1:7, we read ‘In him we have redemption through his blood’. This automatically nullifies the means of redemption as being from any other person or through any other means. I say, and you if you have come to faith can say ‘Christ Jesus is my redemption’, or ‘I am only saved because of what Christ has done for me’. And to any who may read this devotion who have not come to a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, you cannot and will not be redeemed until you have come to Jesus. He alone is our redemption or means of redemption from God.

 

I am reminded again of the words of the hymn I mentioned a few devotions ago, ‘Redeemed how I love to proclaim it, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, redeemed by his infinite mercy, his child and forever I am. Redeemed, redeemed, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, redeemed, redeemed, his child and forever I am.’

 

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:20 ‘for you were bought with a price’, we have been redeemed, purchased at a cost, the cost was the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. This means that redemption is not only about being set free from the sin that entrapped us and had we remained in it would have condemned us, but it also means that we now belong to Jesus. He has purchased us to be his own possession through the shedding of his precious blood. I quote Ephesians 1:13-14 from the NIV ‘And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.’ The ESV reads ‘In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, *to the praise of his glory.’ (with a footnote that says * until God redeems his possession)

 

To conclude these verses, because of the message of the cross, and our coming to see it and accept it as the power of God unto salvation, we have been born again, Christ Jesus who died and who rose again, has become to us from God, our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification and our redemption. It is in him we live and move and have our being, he is all we need! The hymn that gripped me as a youngster still grips me today, and I will quote it in full.

 

Jesus Christ is made to me, all I need, all I need,

He alone is all my plea, He is all need.

 

Wisdom, righteousness and pow’r, holiness for evermore,

My redemption full and sure, He is all I need.

 

Jesus is my all in all, all I need, all I need

While He keeps, I cannot fall, He is all I need.

 

He redeemed me when He died, all in I need, all I need,

I with Him am crucified, He is all I need.

 

To my Saviour will I cleave, all I need, all I need

He will not His servant leave, He is all I need.

 

He’s the treasure of my soul, all I need, all I need

He has cleansed and made me whole, he is all I need.

 

Glory, glory to the Lamb, all I need, all I need,

By His Spirit sealed I am, he is all I need.

 

Oh, the precious blood of Christ, all I need, all I need,

It’s the perfect sacrifice, he is all I need.

 

Chas. P. Jones

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Devotion May 16th

THURSDAY May 16th

 

1 Corinthians 1:30–31

‘And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”’

 

We have already considered Jesus as our righteousness, and very closely linked to it is justification. Today’s word is also closely linked, the word sanctification. Jesus has become to us, sanctification from God. Being declared righteous, the act of being justified is a one-off event that happens immediately when we are saved, but when it comes to sanctification there are two aspects. The first is that the moment we are saved we are also sanctified, which means we are made holy the second is that we need to continually be sanctified, be kept clean.

 

Christ is holy, he has been sent from the Holy God and the purpose is that we too may be made holy. But, once saved, we still live in an imperfect world, therefore although we are justified, and have been sanctified, we are still open to temptation and to sin. Even though we have been made into new creations (1 Corinthians 5:17), we soon discover that there is a battle taking place between the old nature and that which is new in Christ Jesus.

 

But thankfully, we have the help of the Word of God, for the word sanctifies us, (‘Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth’, John 17:17), we have the help of the Holy Spirit, (‘But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth’, 2 Thessalonians 2:13), and we have the help of the One who is himself our sanctification, the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Paul has already said this in the same chapter 1 Corinthians 1 in verse 2 ‘to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ’.

 

We cannot make ourselves holy, there is no ritual that can make us holy, it is only by coming into a real and genuine faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that we can be made holy because he is our sanctification, he has done all that is required on our behalf for us to be sanctified. And once saved, we ensure that we remain in that relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ to continue to be made holy. In the same letter to the Church at Corinth, chapter 6, Paul lists the immoral behaviour of the unbelieving world, he then says to the believers in verse 6, ‘But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God’.  What we must do is to be willing to put off that which is of the flesh, the old nature and put on all that Christ our sanctification has made available for us to be able to walk according to the ways of the Spirit and not according to the flesh.