Ephesians 2:1-10

And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. (NKJV)

Salvation is the gift of God, not the result of works. And yet, we are created in Christ Jesus for good works.

As people, we want to succeed. There is, built inside us, an ambition to win, to be better than our neighbor, to get the gold ribbon. We want to do and then be acknowledged for what we did. Think about it. How difficult it is for you to regularly do exceptional things at work or for your family that go unnoticed? Doesn’t it rankle you, at least a little, that somebody doesn’t say something about how much you worked? At what you accomplished? We all want recognition.

And yet, Father God Himself, planned salvation in such a way that we are required to do good works, but those works don’t save us. We can’t do anything to save ourselves. We are lost without a savior, without The Savior. But once saved, we become His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works. Our good works then become the demonstration of our salvation, but not the cause of it.

Paul tells us that salvation is a gift from God so that no one will be able to boast. Christianity is an odd dichotomy. God made salvation a gift so that we couldn’t boast. The point of the Christian’s life is to bring all glory to God, to lift up our Savior as the only one worthy of praise and honor.

But being a Christian is about more than just not boasting about our salvation. The entire framework of the Christian life is designed so be a life of humility. The apostle Paul taught in Philippians 2:3:

“Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.”

Gary Thomas, in his book Sacred Marriage, talked about the destructiveness of ambition in the Christian life. He writes:

“I’ve seen men and women blinded by their own ambition, even religious ambition, and that kind of blind ambition does have a tendency to suffocate everything and everyone around them” (p. 258).

Blind ambition. That means an ambition that is distorted to us, an ambition that we cannot see clearly but one that hinders us from being all that Christ wants us to be. It is perhaps, without words, boasting about our lives, our accomplishments, our talents, our dreams. Ambition is an eager or zealous desire for rank, fame, or power. It is also a desire to achieve a particular end.

The word translated “selfish ambition” in the New King James is a Greek word that means “a desire to put one’s self forward.” In a sense, it is a desire to be recognized for what we’ve done. It is the desire to be able to boast. And yet boasting is the opposite of humility, the life to which we are called.

So what can I say about this? My salvation is a gift from God. It wasn’t given to me because anything I did, but because Father God so loved me that He wanted to do this. I simply had to put out my hand and accept the gift. But as a result—that interactive process of grace working in my life and my heart responding to it—my life should produce good works. Not just a good work now and then, but be permeated with good works which enrich the lives of those around me. And I can’t even boast about those good works because they are a result of God’s workmanship in me through Christ Jesus. If anyone deserves a good word or praise, it is the Lord for what He has done and is doing in me.

Father, thank you for my salvation. I hope to someday completely realize the price you paid for me, but as I am able today I thank You so much for loving me as You do. Work through me, Father, to do good works that bring You glory. Help me to learn how to live humbly and not to seek the praise of others. I want to learn how to please You and You alone so that Your thoughts of me become my only reward. I ask this in the name of my Savior.

© 2012 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Ephesians 1:7-14

In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory. In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory. (NKJV)

Paul uses a metaphoric structure here when talking about salvation. He uses the idea of a contract where a down-payment is made in anticipation of taking hold of the possession once the full price is paid: “the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession.

As in any contract, it is possible for one or the other of the parties to the contract to withdraw. Thus to establish that He will not withdraw from the contract, God sent His own Holy Spirit as the guarantee that full “payment” will be made. The Holy Spirit is our guarantee that God will not back out on His promise to accept the Lord jesus’ sacrifice as payment in full for our sins.

But there are two parties to this contract: God and us. And while we are sealed with the Holy Spirit, we can also break that seal and walk away from God. We can reject our salvation!

Why would anyone do that? It seems impossible that anyone would want to be separated from God and yet, remember! Adam and Eve, who walked with God in the garden, were tempted and succumbed to the lusts of their flesh. The apostle John told us that there were three things that would entice us: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life (1 John 2:16 NKJV). When we let go of the self-control that is the fruit of the Spirit and give in to the desires that lurk within our flesh, we open ourselves to the temptations that surround us.

The lust of the flesh is the desires and cravings of our bodies. Now some cravings—when we have learned to distinguish between true cravings and false cravings—were created in us so that we wouldn’t die: hunger and thirst, the desire to be in a safe environment. But even those natural cravings—along with the cravings that aren’t natural, but are culturally induced—can lead us away from God’s will. After Jesus fasted for 40 days, Satan tempted Him to turn the stones into bread. But the Lord answered, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4 NKJV). The Lord knew that we could be deceived even by the cravings that God placed within our created bodies. Thus, satisfaction comes not from satisfying the cravings of our flesh, but from turning to the Lord and asking Him to give us everything we need. We are satisfied when we trust that what God has sent fully satisfies all that we need.

The lust of the eyes is often the first step toward sin. Seeing can be physical or it can be mental. What we have seen in the past, we can visualize with our memories and recreate. In Matthew, the Lord Jesus taught us:

“The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” (6:22-23 NKJV).

We see and we desire. It is the lust of the eyes. And even if we don’t see at this moment, if we have seen in the past, the eyes of our minds are able to recreate it through our memories. We need to control what our eyes see.

Our society, these days, entices us with all kinds of evil through what comes in our eyes: books, newspapers, television shows, movies, the Internet. All of this enters our minds and hearts through our eyes. We have to learn to control what we see and then, if we have seen what we should not, to give it to the Lord and ask Him to block those memories. What we see often leads us through temptation into sin. Our lives become what we see. Do our eyes see evil? Then we will live in the darkness of sin. Are our eyes trained to see what is wholesome and righteous? Then we will live in the light of God’s love.

The last thing that entices us is the pride of life. The pride of life places its trust and delight in this life, in the things of this earth: “This is what I’ve accomplished!” “This is the award I won.” “This is the good I’ve done.” The pride of life accepts this life as the end-all to all things and refuses to understand that life is much more than what we own or what we accomplish. The pride of life places satisfaction in accomplishment rather than character, in success rather than service, in power rather than submission. Pride is the opposite of humility. When I am proud, I demand that people give their attention and energy to me rather than focusing on how I can serve them. The pride of life eventually pushes out Christ until there is no more room for Him.

These three enticements—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—live within our flesh 24/7. They sit at the door to our hearts begging to be let in, even for a moment. But sin is never content to have just a moment of our lives. Sin wants to rule forever. As believers we have been given the freedom to choose whether or not we will serve the Lord or we will serve ourselves. And the Holy Spirit Himself had been given to us as a promise of the marvelous salvation that awaits us if we slam the door shut to sin.

Today, we must make a choice. For me, my choice is made. “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15 NKJV). I choose to embrace the guarantee of the Holy Spirit, to live for the promise of eternal life to come and to turn my back on the temptations that so easily ensnare us.

© 2012 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Ephesians 1:3-6

“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, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.” (NKJV)

I think that often my perception of life is too small. I tend to focus on tomorrow, which is wrong because there may be no tomorrow to worry about or in which to celebrate. Or sometimes I focus on the past which is gone—my sins forgiven, my obediences to God stored in heaven for an eternal reward. But where I often fail to focus is on eternity, on heaven, which will be the majority—the vast majority—of my existence.

What activity is it that you really don’t like? For me, one of those things is going to the dentist. I spent six years in braces, going to the orthodontist every six weeks, each visit resulting in weeks of pain and discomfort from the tightened braces. So, for me, visions of dental work are just . . . well, not pleasant. But I know that going to the dentist is important for my overall health, so I endure through the time, knowing that something better awaits me after that visit.

We should actually look at life more like that. This earthly life, in comparison to eternity, is a hiccup (and who can’t endure a hiccup, however painful). And the life that will be “forever” is eternity in heaven with our Father. Thus, when we want—even insist—on having our blessings here in this life (usually to somehow ease the pain of living here), we are focusing on a small moment in time, wanting to store our treasures there, instead of where we can enjoy them forever. The Lord Jesus taught us about this:

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19-21 NKJV).

So when Paul writes that Father God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, we should rejoice! We are getting ready for a marvelous trip, a trip which will never end. And, as an added bonus, our Father is blessing us with all sorts of spiritual blessings that we will enjoy once we begin that trip. Whether or not our time here on earth is easy or happy, we have the most marvelous time awaiting us in heaven. That should make every pain, every sorrow, every burden seem unimportant when compared to what awaits us as soon as our journey here is done. Father God loves us so much that He has reserved the best blessings for us at a time when we won’t ever lose them, when the blessings won’t fade or drift away.

When God blesses us now, often those blesses are temporal, for a time. They meet the needs of our lives for a season and then our circumstances change and the blessing may not meet our current needs. But the blessings that await us are forever, stored in the heavenly places in Christ! Our Savior Himself is guarding and protecting those blessings, not only in anticipation of the time that we get to heaven, but forever. These are blessings that will last.

Paul enumerates part of those blessings in this passage:

• We are adopted as children of God, chosen before the beginning of the world, predestined to be saved because God saw that we would respond to His offer of salvation

Adoption has a special meaning to me because I’m adopted. I was the baby of an unwed teen mom who very courageously gave me to two married people who were wonderful parents to me. I went from a very difficult situation into an almost perfect family. And God knew. God knew before I was conceived that my mom and dad couldn’t have kids of their own blood. God knew that they would love me, nurture me, and protect me during my growing up years. He knew that they would teach me about His love. He gave me to them and they adopted me.

God also has adopted me! I was always His creation and He was always my Creator, but there was a gap between us, a gap of sin caused by my own sinful nature. I could be nothing more than His creation and He could be to me nothing more than Creator because of that gap. But the Lord Jesus, giving up His precious life, took the punishment for my sin (and for the sins of all the world), and offered me the opportunity to become adopted. And now, while I am creation and God is Creator, that gap between us is gone. I am now His child and He is my Father!

• We stand holy and without blame before Him, drenched in His love

The Greek translated here “in love” actually means that we are inside His love. Our position is in His love. We stand holy and without blame before the Creator and Judge of the universe because we are positioned inside the love of our Savior.

The word “holy” doesn’t have anything to do with behavior, but has to do with where we are spiritually. We are separated away from sin because we are positioned in Christ’s love. God is holy because sin cannot be in Him. Sin can’t have anything to do with God. And now, because we are positioned in Christ, we are separated from sin. That is why we are without blame, not because of anything we’ve done, but because of everything He’s done.

• Doing this pleased God. It was what He wanted to do.

Aren’t you glad that God wanted to save us? He isn’t a vengeful God, standing far off in heaven, shaking His finger at us because we sinned again. Rather, He came to earth, became a man, and died, taking our punishment, so that we could stand blameless, positioned in the love of Christ.

• His grace made us accepted because we stand in Christ

Grace is an interesting word because it is interactive. Strong’s defines grace as “the divine influence upon the heart, and its reflection in the life” (G5485). Grace influences our hearts, but we must reflect that influence in our thoughts, in our actions, in what we do and say.

While these blessings are, in part, active in our lives here on earth, they are permanent blessings that we will receive fully once we step into heaven. They are everlasting blessings that will never be taken away, that will never fade, that will never change. Oh, how grateful I am that God was willing to move from Creator to Savior, that He adopted me so that I could change from creation to child!

© 2012 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Ephesians 1:1

“Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus, and faithful in Christ Jesus” (NKJV)

“By the will of God.”

I think that there are inherent dangers in being born into a country that espouses democracy and freedom, one danger being that we are not well accustomed to bending our knee—and our will—to the will of another. While we may feel that we are not in control of much of our lives, the fact is that little of our lives is controlled by those in authority over us. The vast majority of decisions that we make each day are made without thought for what others think; we are free to determine much of the course of our lives. Unless we are Christians. And that’s the rub. As Christians, we should be voluntarily submitting each and every decision to will of God Who is both our Master and Father.

Scripture often describes submitting as humbling ourselves to God. The apostle James wrote:

“Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up” (4:7-10 NKJV).

When we submit ourselves to God, when we humble ourselves, we voluntarily place ourselves into His care, but not only His care, but His authority. We regard our decisions as not worthy, but rather, allow ourselves to be guided by His will and His wisdom. We are obedient to His commands—whether they are suggestions or demands—and we acknowledge that He is in authority over us in all things.

We are not much use to submitting to any kind of authority.

If we are confronted by a rule or law with which we disagree, we are more often than not likely to ignore it or circumvent it, rather than simply to obey it because it is a law established by an authoritative body. We see our government—and often anyone in authority over us—as so corrupt that we feel we have no need to obey the rules and laws set into place. I’ve even heard pastors say, “It’s better to ask forgiveness than permission,” when confronted by civil ordinances that they feel are impeding the growth of their churches.

And while there may be occasionally rules that we should disobey (because doing otherwise would place us outside of God’s will), obeying the rules over us gives us practice in submitting to higher authorities. Paul even tells us Romans to submit to the government over us: “Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities” (13:1 NKJV). And Peter reiterates the same idea: “Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to governors, as to those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good” (1 Peter 2:13-14 NKJV).

I believe that part of the reason for this is so that we will gain practice obeying authorities.

I am a school teacher by day, teaching in a local elementary school. Our school has rules as does my classroom. Most of my children aren’t accustomed to obeying any kind of rules and have difficulty submitting themselves to the authority over them. I have to teach them every year that the rules at school—however minor seeming—have at least as one purpose the idea of learning to submit to rules set down by those in authority over us. If my children learn to submit to class and school rules, they will be better equipped to submit to the rules of law that will have authority over them as adults.

If we, as adults, lack practice in submitting to authorities, we may have difficulty truly submitting to the Lord. And yet, Paul himself tells us that he was an apostle only by and through the will of God. If God had called Paul to become a ditch digger, rather than an apostle, I’m convinced that Paul would have embraced that occupation and done it gladly simply because it was God’s will.

Am I willing to do what the Lord wants me to do simply (and always) because it is His will? Or do I think that my talents, time, and efforts would be better served doing something else? Am I willing to submit first because He is Master and second because, by saving me, He has purchased me with His own blood? Or do I think that somehow my way will be better?

In the words of Dr. Phil: “How’s that working for you?”

Doesn’t it make sense that we would be better served to submit ourselves to a God Who is all-knowing, all-loving, and all-wise rather than to try to make our way for ourselves?

© 2012 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.