The Road Through Ephesus... Loved and Chosen Ephesians 1:4

Can I tell you a secret? I've been waiting for three days to write about this next verse (and the verse after, but that will have to wait until tomorrow). Seriously, every time I read this verse my heart gets excited and I fall a little deeper in love with Jesus. So if you're wondering what today's verse is (which you really shouldn't be since I am going in order and yesterday was 1:3 so that makes today 1:4), here it is:

Ephesians 1:4

"Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes."

Just let that roll over you for a minute. Do you see how loved you are? Do you understand how passionate God is for you? But, alas, I am getting ahead of myself.

Let's start with that first phrase, "Even before he made the world,...". Before Genesis 1:1, before he spoke the world in motion, before this round ball was put into orbit, (look at the next part) God loved us. He hadn't even created us yet and he loved us. He hadn't created our ancestors or the place we would live but his heart was filled with love for us. Do you get that? The Creator of the Universe, God Almighty, LOVES you! It's not a new love. It's a love that has been burning forever.

And not only did he love us before he created the world, but he chose us. He picked you. He picked me. He knew what we would be, what we would do, how we would turn our backs on him, and he still chose us. He wanted us before we ever wanted him. Before we could ever want him. And he didn't just chose us randomly, he chose us with a purpose. So that when we are in Christ we are holy and without fault, blameless, in his eyes. He chose us for a relationship with his son, before his son even died for us. He knew what would happen.

God's plan for our redemption was put in motion before he created anything. That's how much he loves us.

Do you get it? Most of the time I don't. It takes this verse and others like it to remind me how much I'm loved. Too often I forget how God has expressed his love for me.

Let's live out the love that God has shown us.

The Road Through Ephesus... Spiritual Blessings Ephesians 1:3

Day three of insanity...I'm so loving every moment I get to write. Just FYI, I'm not really writing for you, I'm writing for me. I am getting so much out of diving into Ephesians verse by verse!

So here's the verse for today:

Ephesians 1:3

"All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ."

The first thing I noticed is that God gets all the praise in this verse. Not divided praise or half-hearted praise but all praise. Which causes me to ask myself the question, do I give God all the praise or only part of it? He deserves all of it. He died so that I might spend eternity with him. He loves me unconditionally without limits. Yet so often I forget that and give others the praise that only God deserves. How about you? Does God get all your praise?

But I think perhaps the part of the verse that makes my heart jump comes next: "who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ." God has given us spiritual blessings. What are spiritual blessings? Salvation, grace, mercy, love. God has blessed us with all of these and more. He doesn't give us just part of the spiritual blessings that exist, but rather every spiritual blessing. Every single one! And why does God gift us with these spiritual blessings? Because we are united with Christ. We belong to him. Because of his blood covering our sins we are united with him and because we are united with him we receive these blessings.

What spiritual blessings are you most thankful for?? What does a life full of blessings look like lived out?

The Road Through Ephesus... Freedom and Favor Ephesians 1:2

I wasn't so sure what I would write about this verse so I decided to look up the words grace and peace. But before we start I want to share the verse with you. Today I'm quoting from the message because I just love the way it's said.

Ephesians 1:2

"I great you with the grace and peace poured into our lives by God our Father and our Master, Jesus Christ."

So, grace and peace. Most Christians know what these words mean, but do they truly understand them? One of the definitions I found of grace is God's favor or help. Paul is saying that the Ephesian church has God's favor and help, not in just a small quantity but as the message paraphrase says "poured into our lives".

Not only that, but when I looked up the definition for the word peace, one idea that kept coming up was that peace is freedom. When you are truly free, you are truly at peace. And again, we don't get just a small portion of freedom, but rather it is poured into our lives by God.

Think about it. God has literally poured help and freedom into our lives. He is standing, waiting for us to ask for his help, the same help, the same grace that he has already poured into our lives. He is offering us freedom from all that holds us captive. Every sinful thought, every sinful action that keeps us captive, and he has literally covered us in his freedom.

Paul was reminding the Ephesian church who they were. That they were free in Christ, that they had God's help and favor in their lives. In reminding the Ephesians who they were in Christ, Paul reminds us that we who know Jesus and live in him have his grace (favor and help) and peace (freedom) in our lives.

So let's live like it. Let's live like we have God's favor, help and freedom in our lives. And let's show those same qualities in our actions to the people around us. So, be full of God's grace and peace, because he's already poured it into your life.

The Road Through Ephesus...Introductions Ephesians 1:1

Ahhh........ the beginning. The start of a great adventure (or at least what I hope is a great adventure). I am seriously so excited to do this and get started! Now I may not have that same enthusiasm by day 112 but I sure hope I do!

I should probably let you know that I use the NLT (New Living Translation) for my personal study, so all references will be taken from there unless otherwise noted. (Don't have an NLT?? Use BibleGateway.com to look up the verse in different versions!)

So here's the verse for today:

Ephesians 1:1

"This letter is from Paul, chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus. I am writing to God's holy people in Ephesus, who are faithful followers of Christ Jesus."

Introductions. Sometimes they can be rather predictable. For instance, if two college students meet for the first time, you can be guaranteed that the topics of schools, majors, and how much longer until graduation will be discussed in the first few minutes. In Deaf culture, I would introduce myself by giving my name, my sign name, where I went to school, and who my teachers were. Most of this information that is exchanged is to give us reference points and points of commonality on which we can (hopefully) build a future relationship on. So what does Paul's introduction tell us about him and the people that he was writing to?

One of the first things that pops out at me is that Paul was chosen. I love that word. Chosen. We all like to be picked for something special. It gives us a sense of belonging and uniqueness all at the same time. Paul seems to like this word too. When we read on through the first chapter Paul continues to use the word "chosen" to illustrate that God chose each of us before the creation of the world. How amazing is that!?!? We are chosen through Christ. We are not left overs. We are not picked because no one else wanted us. We are chosen and were chosen before the world was created! Just like God chose Paul, God chooses us, even knowing what we are like, to do his work, for his kingdom. I don't know about you, but that makes my heart smile.

The other part of this verse that really jumps out at me is how Paul refers to the people that he is writing to. He refers to them as "God's holy people...who are faithful followers of Christ Jesus." The church at Ephesus had an amazing reputation! As I'm reading this I can't help but think that Paul is introducing us to the church at Ephesus. He's saying, "Holly, this is that church I was telling you about. They faithfully follow Jesus through thick and thin. I mean, just look at how much they look like Jesus!" I want a reputation like that! I want when people introduce me to others or are referring to me in conversation to say, "Oh you know Holly, she's the one who loves Jesus. She faithfully follows him with everything she has. The resemblance between her and Jesus is just remarkable!" I want people to be able to look at me and say that I am a faithful follower of Jesus. That's how I want people to remember me. I want those words to be what defines me. More than knowing sign language, more than being friendly and sweet, I want what defines me to be my faithful following of Jesus.

Don't you love introductions??

Insanity!!!

I've fallen in love.... with the book of Ephesians. It is seriously a-maz-ing!!! I decided to read it last night because two of the cards I got for graduation had the same verse from Ephesians in them and when I read the verses in the cards, they rocked my heart. So of course, not having the cards in front of me last night as I was spending time with Jesus, I had to read the whole book of Ephesians and let it all just rock my heart. While I was doing that, I had an enormously crazy thought. It was seriously downright insane. I started thinking, what if I went verse by verse through Ephesians on my blog. I keep finding all these gems and I want to share them, but that would make a reeeeeeaaaaaallllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllyyyy long blog message. I bet I would learn so much and be so challenged if I went through Ephesians verse by verse and blogged about what God was showing me.

So that's what I'm going to do.

There are 155 verses in Ephesians. Which means it will take me approximately 155 days to finish blogging through Ephesians. It will probably take a little less time than that, because there will probably be verses that I just can't split up, that I just have to do together.

I hope you all follow along and add your thoughts and comments to what you hear God speaking to your heart through these verses.

So let the adventure commence...

Thinking at Night....

I've been busy lately with graduating and then vacation so I haven't posted in about a month, but I can't wait to start posting more!!! So now as an official college graduate I write to you :-)

I was having some Jesus time last night and I came across a verse that blew me away. My mind is still working through the verse and processing it, but I thought I would share some of my thoughts anyways.

Here's the verse:

"I lie awake thinking of you, meditating on you through the night."

-Psalms 63:6

David was writing in this passage about longing for God. About desiring him. Think about it. When you lie awake at night thinking, what do you think about? For me it's usually the things I desire or want to see happen. I tend to daydream.

Yet this verse was so convicting. Too often as I lie in bed thinking, my thoughts are not of God and his goodness, his holiness, his mercy, his love. More often than not they're about a cute boy, a good friend, or future plans. Too often I think this is a reflection of what our hearts desire most. And that makes me sad, because it means that I desire all of these other things more than I desire God. Yes, sometimes I do lie awake at night thinking about him, meditating on what he has been teaching me lately. But more often than not, those aren't my thoughts.

I want that to change. I want my longing for God to trump all. I want my thoughts to clearly reflect the desire I have for God, the longing I have to just sit in his presence.

Still part of me is hesitant to do this. Perhaps because it means surrendering some of my dreams, what I think I desire. Yet, God knows my heart even better than I do. So, I'm holding on to another promise:

"Seek the kingdom of God above all else, and he will give you everything you need." Luke 12:31

Not everything I want, but everything I need. And not just part of what I need. He will gibe me EVERYTHING I need! Which if you consider it, God knows everything I need and everything I desire and His plans are, I'm sure, way cooler than mine.

"If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me." Jeremiah 29:13

God's Plans

So, if you haven't heard already, I'm not going to Utah this summer. I was disappointed at first because I had invested so much time into the application process, but the more I think about it the more I realize that in all honesty, I didn't want to go. I kept trying to convince myself that I did, but when I found out I wasn't going, one of my first feelings was relief (that was after the tears subsided). If I had been accepted, I would have gone because the way we were praying about the whole situation was that if God wanted me to go he would open the door or slam it shut. Acceptance would have meant an open door and that would mean that God wanted me there this summer.

The door was slammed shut. Which in my mind, means that God has a purpose and a plan for me hear this summer. I don't know what that is yet, but I really can't wait to find out.

However, the day I found out I wasn't going I was still feeling a little depressed (I mean, it was an amazing opportunity) and as I was spending my time with God I came across a verse I had underlined before. This verse was just confirmation to me that it was God who slammed that door shut and that he has plans for me in Michigan this summer.

(And FYI I think it's pretty amazing how God had me read that verse on that night. I mean, I've been reading through Isaiah, about two chapters every night and for that chapter to be on the exact night I wasn't accepted into the program was God. And I happen to think that's really cool.)

So, I know you're all probably wondering what the verse was, so I'll share it now.

Isaiah 22:22b

"When he opens doors, no one will be able to close them; when he closes doors, no one will be able to open them."

I just think that's really cool and I'm trusting God to continue opening and closing doors this summer in accordance with his plans.