The Everyday Prayer

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 2:19-22 (day six)

⁴⁴ Even as Peter was saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who were listening to the message. ⁴⁵ The Jewish believers^[e]who came with Peter were amazed that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles, too. ⁴⁶ For they heard them speaking in other tongues^[f] and praising God. Acts 10:44-46

There was a great concern among Christians in Ephesus that they weren’t family but instead second-class citizens in God’s Kingdom. Paul’s letter had to have been a relief, “You aren’t strangers anymore; you are first-class citizens with all the rights and privileges.” What the law had kept separate, Jesus brought together. Jews and Gentiles together had become God’s dwelling place in the world, a new humanity in Christ. What a miracle?! What a responsibility?!

And come to find out, that had been God’s plan all along.

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 2:19-22(day five)  Paul uses three pictures or metaphors in just 3 verses to drive home his point of belonging for these gentile believers- Citizenship, Family, and Stones. Was a new thought to them and also to the Jewish believers, that they all now belonged in community, together. Paul’s words ring true for us today, challenging the western cultural thought of separation and individualization, “I don’t need to join a church or even attend a church to be a strong and growing christian”.  Paul emphatically says no to this line of thinking. Christianity is a “team sport”. Trust, patience, kindness, steadfastness, and love are all needed and required to function as fellow citizens, family, and stones being built together. When we receive and give these things with (Paul’s word) others in local church community, people sense and see God at work. It is one of the sermons that we get to preach. I wonder how clear and how bold this sermon is seen and heard from those looking at and listening to our church.

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 2:19-22 (day four)

I was recently back on Baylor’s campus and walked past one of the new buildings that had popped up since my last visit. In the bricks on the facade of the building, there were peoples names on them, the names of folks who had donated in order for that new space to be built.

When Paul says that we are now part of the household of God, he means that not only our names but our entire lives serve as bricks in the temple, built for the glory and worship of God. But we don’t get a brick in this building by donating or earning it, we’re part of this building because of what Jesus did on the cross.

The work of the cross is a work of scandalous unity, grafting all the people of the world into the family of God. We as Gentiles aren’t included in this building as an annex or a mother-in-law suite, an after thought or an add-on. We’re included in the very body of Christ, the ever-growing temple of worship to the God of all the earth. Praise God, the opportunity to be apart of this work is open to everyone, and the temple is still being built.

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 2:19-22 (day two) So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, vs. 19

Unworthiness may be one of the toughest hurdles to overcome when considering trusting Jesus. When we come to the place of examining our lives before the majesty of Jesus, who are we that he would consider us fellow citizens? What do we bring? How are we made worthy? Only through the cross, only through Jesus’s sacrifice is any of this possible. We must reconcile that we are not worthy, and any impostor syndrome we may experience is justified, until we understand God’s intent to make us co-heirs with Christ. It is a feeling that I wish would go away the longer I walk with the Lord, but it is a truth I must struggle with every day. I am unworthy, but he is faithful. Don’t let your sense of self-unworth determine your value in the Lord.

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

and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. Ephesians 2:3

I have two boys under the age of 4 in the house. They do not know that they are children of wrath (nor do their mother or I believe they are bad kids), but the trail of destruction that follows them would say differently. The tendency of the flesh is to lash out when the world around us does not operate as we expected it to. This leads to kicking, screaming, hitting, etc. In the argument of nature vs nurture, this clearly an instance of nature, for I do not fall on the floor crying when I am told I can’t have a second popsicle from the freezer. I have learned how to control my natural desires.

Sin is the perversion of natural desire. God creates in us natural desires that are intended for good works (vs 10), but the flesh twists those things in such a way to cause us push back/lash out against God.  It is not just toddlers and babies that lash out, we all have this propensity to appease the flesh. But God (vs 4) gives us the ability to overcome.

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

Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins. Ephesians 2:1 (NLT)

Once is a pregnant word, full of history yet firmly in the present.  It is a whole story wrapped up in one word. In the case of Ephesians 2:1-10, it is the beginning of the greatest story ever told.

The story of Ephesians 2:1-10 is the greatest story ever told because of its divine intervention. The ending is so improbable that you would never have guessed it if you didn’t already know it. The distance between ‘once’ and the end is so vast that only an act of God could have connected the two.

Once is the start of our story, too. The only reason we have a “once” in our story is because God gave us a new present with a future promise in Christ. Does that not put a smile on your face?

Be thankful for divine interventions that completely and impossibly change our trajectory!

Re:Verse passage – Ephesians 2:8-10 (day five). Ever get “cabin fever” or go “stir crazy”? (remember  snowmageddon) The natural response is restlessness and frustration. My response is often to just get out or get away and do something. It’s a natural tendency to want to immediately “do something”or “do anything”. Ever thought or said those words? Some times we relate to salvation and faith the same way, “I’ve got to do something”.  Paul says no.  Clearly. Succinctly. Not by works (there’s nothing you can do for your salvation). But then, he goes on to say we were created in Christ to do good works.  Confused?  Frustrated? The clarity comes when you examine the “good works”. Our tendency is think, “I need to do something/anything” (works). But the scriptures are teaching us to think and trust, “I need to patiently wait and discover the things God has for me to do” (good works vs. 10). Sometimes waiting/discovering what God has and desires for us to do is the work. It’s just as hard and is as much work as actually doing.

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

Many of us would say that when we think back to our moment of salvation, that initial surrender to the Lord, we knew that it was purely a gift of God’s grace and not something we could have achieved on our own. We might have even gotten to that moment of surrender because we had tried to find salvation through our own efforts, and kept coming up empty. We couldn’t have somehow earned or climbed the ladder to salvation, rather it was by God’s grace through our faith in Christ.

But as we continue in our journey of faith, we can so easily forget this. I knew at the moment of my salvation that I was receiving an unearned gift of God’s grace, but as I continue on this journey of working out my salvation, I so easily fall into the trap of thinking that I can somehow climb the ladder of sanctification on my own, or that if I just work hard enough I can look more like Jesus. It’s tempting to tell God, “Thanks, I’ll take it from here.”

While Paul makes it clear that we are meant to respond to God’s grace with good works, Scripture lovingly repeats that is only through God’s grace that we have been saved, and only through God’s grace that we continue to grow closer to him. Continually accept God’s free gift of grace, friends. It is sure and steadfast.