The Road Through Ephesus... Inseparable Ephesians 2:13

I'm back.  I'm back in Indiana.  I'm back to blogging.  And I hope to not leave you for too long again.  If I do, read the post below this to find out what you should do.  I know it's been awhile but I want to jump back into Ephesians with you if that's okay.  I'm pretty excited about this next verse and I hope you all are excited about this as well.

Ephesians 2:13

"But now you have been united with Christ Jesus. Once you were far away from God, but now you have been brought near to him through the blood of Christ."

This is good news.  It's not dark or dreary. It's hope  It's life. It's Jesus.  My heart is happy and content after reading this. Realizing the truths in this verse, listening to Jesus whisper to me through this verse, makes my heart full.  Look at the first part. "...you have been united with Christ Jesus."  I looked up the word united, because if you know me, you know I have an obsession with words. And if you didn't already know, united comes from the Latin root meaning "one".  Which is cool, because if you read it that way it says that we have become one with Christ Jesus.  We're not just good friends.  We are inseparable from Christ.  People shouldn't be able to tell the difference between us.  So cool.  And so not how I live most of the time.  I'm pretty sure that most people can see how I'm not like Jesus.  Which is sad, because I want to be inseparable.  I want people to look at me and think Jesus.

But the verse goes farther, it explains itself.  Not only have we become one with Jesus, but we were far from God and through the blood of Jesus we have been brought close to him.  Through Jesus.  Not righteous living, not anything I've done (or haven't done), not through a religion, but through a relationship with God's Son.  God's Son, who came down from heaven, lived as a perfect human, was beaten, bruised, and killed by crucifixion, and rose from the dead, did all of that for me.  His blood brought us close to God.  It wasn't through the perfect life he led.  It wasn't through the sickness he healed.  It wasn't through the mute he made speak.  It was through the blood he shed on the cross.

How often I take that blood for granted.  I forget what it cost Jesus to reconcile with me.  Too often I treat this precious gift with disdain and ungratefulness.  This week I want to remember the blood.  The blood that Jesus shed for us. For me.  I want to live in such a way this week that I remember what it cost to reconcile me with God and what it cost to make me and Jesus inseparable.  As I heard today, the only lasting motivational influence is love, and what greater love has ever been displayed than that of Jesus' shed blood for me.

Let's live it.