You are Blessed

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 1:3-12(day five) 

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,”

How are you?  It’s a question we ask and get asked a lot. Sometimes it’s a cordial question- passing by and offering a quick greeting. Often the answer to that question is “fine” or “ok”. Sometimes though, it is a more deep and meaningful question. And the answer is longer and more personal. I have a friend at our church whose answer to that question never changes.  “Blessed and highly favored”. I always ask him so that I can hear him answer. His answer helps and encourages me. It reminds me that I too, as a believer in Christ am “blessed and highly favored”. It presses into my mind and heart the certainty of my eternal reality in the midst of my current circumstances. Paul was doing the same thing. In the midst of his imprisonment, he himself, wants to remember and also remind his readers that they are blessed.

Pauls directs their attention towards God because God is deserving of our thanks and praise, and also because articulating our blessings helps us enjoy and understand them even more. So, let me remind you that “You are Blessed”!!  Amen?

Pull Back the Curtain

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 1:3-12 (day four)

Paul’s opening of Ephesians reminds me of the Wizard of Oz. Near the end of the movie (spoiler alert!), when Dorothy and the gang finally reach the wizard, they pull back the curtain only to realize that the “wizard” is a small, unassuming man using gimmicks in order to appear powerful.

Paul is also pulling back the curtain, but instead of disappointment, we’re met with wonder and promises beyond our wildest dreams. He pulls back the curtain of the cosmos and we find that not only are we adopted as sons and daughters of God, made pure and blameless before him by the sacrifice of his son, but that this was God’s plan from the beginning. Long before the creation of the world, God loved us and planned to live with us for eternity.

Ephesians lets us in on the plan that God has had all along, and we find that Christ is not only the center of that plan or the climax of the story, but he is the beginning, middle, and end, the one in whom all things on heaven and earth find their origin and conclusion. Through Christ, we see God’s love for us that was there from the very beginning, and his plan to live with us for eternity.

Nurture

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 1:3-12 (day three)

“In love he predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the kind intention of his will.”

Here Paul shares with us a glimpse of not merely God’s creative work, but God’s desire. Welling up within God, Paul says, is a deep affection for the human beings he has made. No, more than that. The deep affection was there even before he made man. The intention to draw human kind close to himself was already there by the time God fashioned creatures in his image. The human race has never existed without God’s longing to nurture and treasure.

Inheritance

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 1:3-14 (day two) also we have obtained an inheritance vs. 11a

Have you been the recipient of an estate settlement or financial inheritance? Perhaps it was expected and well planned and communicated. Regardless, it was likely a blessing to have more without having “earned” it in the usual sense. Paul reminds us that the inheritance we receive when we are found in Christ is an eternal fountainhead. Many of us understand pensions, 401k accounts, and investments which will have a level of depreciation once distributed. This is not how salvation works. Through Christ we are inheriting eternity. This kind of lavish gift is attainable for everyone. This is also a distinction from most inheritance. There is no need to hoard or hide what we have freely received. The hope is that we make everyone aware of the freedom found in Christ Jesus.

Re:Verse Blog – 8/26/24

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 1:3-12 (day one)

Join us as Senior Pastor Chris Johnson, Associate Pastor Aaron Hufty, and Associate Pastor Bryan Richardson walk us through Ephesians 1:3-12 in our Fall Re:Verse Series: “Ephesians: Life Together in Christ.”

Holds it Together

Re:Verse passage – Colossians 1:15-24 (day seven)

 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. vs 17

Do you ever find yourself asking God in retrospect where He was at when you needed Him? “Where were you God? Why did you not help me there?” Those questions reveal more about our understanding of God than they do His absence. If you listen closely, you will hear His reply, “I was there the whole time.”

Jesus is in all things! He does not just hold the whole world in His hands, his hands are what holds the whole world together. The interconnectedness of our universe points us to a Creator who is connecting all these things. From the device you are reading this on, to the walls surrounding you, to the very breath you breathe, Jesus is in all things. How might we become more aware of His presence, so that we may more readily invite Him into the difficult moments of our life? We need to know are never alone!

Everything

Re:Verse passage – Colossians 1:15-24(day six)

For God in all his fullness
    was pleased to live in Christ,
20 and through him God reconciled
    everything to himself.
He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth
    by means of Christ’s blood on the cross. Colossians 1:19-20

The Son of God became a flesh and blood man. He hugged his parents, worked with his hands, had dirty feet, picked figs off trees, and likely had a favorite food. This is important because it means Jesus reconciled all our humanity and creation to God, and not just part of it. If God were not interested in redeeming our physical bodies, he would not have sent his son to take on a human body. He would not have sent his son to enter creation if he were not interested in redeeming the earth.

When we over-spiritualize God’s work of reconciliation, we can miss what he is up to. Christ’s blood on the cross does far more than provide forgiveness; it gives us tangible peace with God, others, creation, and even ourselves…forever.

Through Jesus, God reconciled everything to himself. That’s what it means to be human.

Questions

Re:Verse passage – Colossians 1:15-24(day five)  If Jesus is the perfect picture (image) of God- and He is. Then a good question might be, “Is He is also the best picture of human beings?”  The answer is Yes.  Jesus is the complete and full image of all that man was created to be. And as a man, He perfectly displayed the nature and character of God. “He is the image of the invisible God”  There is great hope, privilege, and opportunity for each of us (who have a relationship with God through Christ), to  become like Christ and be an image bearer. So then, we must ask ourselves (and ask it all the time) what could be uncomfortable and awkward questions, “Do others see in me a picture and image of the invisible God?”  “Do I faithfully glorify God as an image of both His holiness and grace?”

Restoration

Re:Verse passage – Colossians 1:15-24 (day four)

In Jesus, we see who God truly is. Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God. But we also see who we as humans are meant to be – reflections of God’s image and love. Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of true divinity, but also of true humanity.

This miraculous person of Jesus, the one who singularly stands at the center of all space and time, is the one in whom all things find their creation and their restoration. Colossians reminds us that “…it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.”

Because Jesus is at the center all things, nothing is beyond restoration. In our darkest moments, we may think that we or a loved one is beyond repair, but Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection definitively say otherwise. Because of Jesus, nothing broken is beyond repair, nothing dirtied is beyond restoration, and nothing dead is beyond resurrection. Our bodies, our minds, and our spirits may groan now, but we find our strength knowing that whether it is in this life or the one to come, Christ is restoring all things to himself.

Image

Re:Verse passage – Colossians 1:15-24 (day three)

“He is the image of the invisible God.”

It’s not uncommon to hear in evangelical circles that the way to know God is through Jesus Christ. Often a person will mean by that statement that Christ is the way one gets to God, as in, begins a life of friendship with God. This passage of scripture also has another dimension to it. It is this: when you wonder what God’s character is like, what he thinks about, how he lives, whether he notices you, or wants you near him, or considers your longings important, or pays attention to the things that break your heart, look at Jesus Christ. You can’t just take God in and discern his person. That’s all too much, too big, too high for you. But you can take in Jesus. You can behold him, the man. That’s God.