The Road Through Ephesus...Identified Ephesians 1:13

Wow. Life is insanely crazy. Yesterday I was at a wedding for two amazing people. I seriously cannot wait to see what God is going to do through their marriage. It will be beautiful! Oh, and I forgot to tell you all that our basement flooded last weekend. So we've been working on that all week trying to get it cleaned up. What a mess!

Anyways, let's move on to the important stuff.

Ephesians 1:13

"And now you Gentiles have also heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago."

This verse makes me so glad for prepositions and clauses. It might sound funny to you, but bear with me a moment. Without those prepositions, information is scarce. Yes, there are complete thoughts, but those thoughts are made so much richer and fleshed out by the prepositional phrases.

The first part of the verse that I want to look at isn't a prepositional phrase, but it does give more information. It gives the definition of the word truth. Too often in the world today we hear that there is no such thing as absolute truth. Well, God's word declares otherwise. So what is the truth? The truth in this verse is simply this: "the Good News that God saves you." It's truth. God saves you. What an awesome truth that is!! The truth is the Gospel (the Good News) which says that God saves you. Aren't you glad Paul added this bit of information in?!?

So the next part starts, "And when you believed...". That's great and all, but I am really glad that there's a prepositional phrase after that, because it's not just anything that you have believed. What you believed is this, you believed "in Christ". You didn't believe in just anything, you believed in the only one who can save you, the only one who can offer you forgiveness of your sins, the only one who can make you right with God. That's who you believed in.

The next part makes my heart sing. "He identified you..." Wait, what does he identify me as? He identifies me "as his own". How amazing is that?!?!? You are his! And it doesn't end there! Nope, look at how he identifies you: "by giving you the Holy Spirit..." The NIV says that he has put his seal on you and that his seal is the Holy Spirit. That's how God identifies his people. By those who have the Holy Spirit in them. He gives us this gift of the Holy Spirit (which is a pretty cool gift in my opinion) and it's not a gift that he decided to give spur of the moment. No, it's one that he promised long ago. He's been preparing to give it to you for an eternity. If you haven't accepted Jesus, he's still waiting to give it to you. The offer is there, given with open arms. Don't make him wait any longer.