Author: Bryan Richardson

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 5:15-21 (day three)

“And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit…”

Substance use makes sense as an attempt to avoid otherwise painful places of a person’s inner world. A person seeking such relief will experience shame from others. And now in addition to the internal agony the person lives with, that person must also navigate feelings of disgrace and rejection. It’s awful. Fortunately, Paul’s words here offer compassion. He acknowledges how hard the world is on a person’s heart (“the days are evil”). His words convey the understanding that people do reach for all kinds of things to ease the pain. And then he says that there is a way to the soothing you’re looking for that will not use you up like you are disposable and worthless. That way is the Spirit of God himself.

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 5:8-14 (day three)

“It is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret.”

One might read this passage and conclude that it’s giving Pharisee. As in, “God, I thank you that I’m not like this person here because I don’t stoop to the level of acknowledging those shameful things.” The sense of these remarks by Paul is not the policing or surveillance of conversations people have, though, but rather the beauty and elegance of people whom God has made and who bear his image. Paul isn’t saying, “Watch your language,” but instead, “As we necessarily speak of horrific things, we remember with sorrow that with each deed of darkness the glory of a living, breathing human being is abused and disrespected.”

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 4:17-24 (day three)

“They, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.”

When nerve sensation ceases in any part of the body, one of the dangers is that wounds will go unnoticed and untreated; what you can’t feel you won’t address. This is true of the human body, and it’s true of one’s emotional and spiritual experience too. When one develops an inner callousness, panic can set in when the realization dawns that the ability to feel love, joy, sadness, hope – even pain – has faded or ceased altogether. In that panic, a person will reach for more and more extreme behaviors, greedy to feel something – anything. The mounting damage to one’s soul from such activity goes unnoticed because, again, the person cannot feel. Jesus Christ can restore feeling to the heart, halting the spiritual gangrene.

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 4:11-16 (day three)

“…speaking the truth in love…”

The old movie quote, “You can’t handle the truth!” has particular resonance with this passage. It’s not necessarily that people to whom you are speaking cannot handle the truth. The question is how you yourself will handle that which is true. Can you be trusted to steward the truth well? Will you employ truth as a means to power? Will you speak what is technically true in order to prove a point? Will you say something just because it is true to avoid the difficulty of maintaining silence? Truth tempts one to all kinds of bullying behavior, or passive-aggressive ploys, or sanctimonious posturing. When love generates one’s speech and behavior, though, truth will serve love, and it will focus all interactions heavenward. People will reject truth, but you will never reject people when love flows from you.

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 4:1-6 (day three)

“…one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.”

“Lord, to whom shall we go?” Peter once asked. His experience was that he had found the one he had been looking for all his life. Here he was, and he wasn’t leaving. Now Paul scales up this devotion to encompass not only Christ, but the entire body of Christ – the church. Where else will you go if not with the church? Paul asks, in effect. Who else will you grow with, confess to, sing with, mourn with, pray with, hope with, rejoice with, live and die with if not the church?

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 3:14-21 (day three)

“…that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.”

The phrase “by faith,” might seem at times very close to “by make-believe.”  Consider, though: when you’ve been many miles away from someone you love and long to be near, have you brought that person to mind and felt in your body a sense of calm and well-being as you immerse yourself in the images of past experiences you’ve shared together? Or have you had such a moment bringing to mind a loved one who has died? Is this experience real, or is it make-believe? Surely you’re not pretending to feel the warmth and comfort of the person’s presence. There is a reality in such occurrences that transcends time and space. This is the way you are made; you carry around within you those you love. And so it is with Christ. Believe it.

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 3:1-13 (day three)

“…in accordance with the eternal purpose which he carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord…”

Paul came along too late to have been one of Jesus’s disciples during the three years of ministry on earth. Nonetheless Jesus apprenticed Paul during the nearly twenty years between the Damascus  Road incident and the beginning of his writing and teaching. There was none more appropriate than Paul, then, to drop this bombshell revelation on the Ephesians: God’s intent all along was not a limited mission to save a fragment of the human race, but rather an expansive whosoever-will-may-come doors-thrown-open invitation to all who would come to him for healing. It was not just a sect thing,  not just a Judaism thing, but a cosmos thing. The church’s work will involve inviting all the world to Christ.

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 2:8-10 (day three)

“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

There is nothing so disheartening as to experience rejection, with its accompanying message that you aren’t good enough, lovely enough, desirable enough, important enough, valuable enough for inclusion in a family or a friendship or a project or an assignment or an adventure. When others have somehow found the key to being a person of worth and it seems you’re relegated to the status of also-ran, that’s lonely. Christ broke through that system. No longer will people lord their significance over you and look down on your lesser status. The Lord himself — not any worldly system — has declared you treasured. Enough said.

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 1:15-23 (day three)

“I…do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers”

As Paul spent time with these fellow Christians, he began to entrust himself to them, opening himself up to friendship, a sharing of life. He could have remained transactional with them, which is less risky. When no one can break your heart, that’s a pretty safe place to be. But then no one can enter into your heart either, so it’s very lonely. To Paul, that friendship was worth the risk, and he gave thanks for his friends — much like the Lord himself, who opened his heart to friendship with those who could wound him or love him.