Eph. 1:8 Impelled With Insight part 8

     Captivate in Our Riches in Jesus Christ v.7-12          

         Enrich Us In How We Are Showered v.8  Wherein he hath abounded toward

                                                                                           us in all wisdom and prudence;

Abounded has the aspect in mind of a super abundance, an amount that is excessive, a supreme proliferation.  This is a burgeoning prosperity. God’s grace is more than enough to save us, keep us, and eternally secure us.

God bursts this favor on us in a deluge of drenching showers of love.  He’s articulating the immense value of His grace in a descriptive expression in all wisdom and prudence.

All wisdom is God’s deep purposes; prudence is the word for understanding, which means that God individualizes His purposes to us in a personalized comprehensiveness.

Wisdom is objective it’s the overall panorama of God’s plan.  Understanding is subjective as the Lord personally and with intimate detail makes His love real to each of us with a touch that reaches our quieted hearts and lives.

Wisdom is the broad form of the principle behind all that God does and is doing.  Understanding is the practical outworking in our lives day by day.

The Lord is not secretive or ungenerous in His giving.  He denies no one and is liberal to all.  Where there is a possible restriction or limitation He magnifies special purpose of love that God would curb or check in some way His outpouring.

1Cor.1:24 But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

Those that are receptive to His call are true Christians and in case you didn’t know this there are a lot of people who claim to be Christ’s believers and they’re not.

Is Christ the power of God in our lives and is He the Wisdom of God in our hearts and minds?  By power the expression is identifying His power of salvation, debt eradication, and forgiveness by what He accomplished at the cross.

To the general populace that all looks like disgusting weakness, foolishness and shameful stupidity to die on a cross and yet in Romans Paul says He’s not ashamed of the truth and wisdom in the historical fact of Christ crucified, buried and risen.

This is the power of God unto salvation.  This is the wisdom of God. This is the way in which God demonstrates and corroborates his wisdom in the salvation of men.

Is it a wise plan to us?  Do we see how it’s adapted to the end for our benefit, how it pardons, forgives and sets us out for eternal life.  If we see it all, and enter the beauty and love that is there, the mercy and the grace poured out, then we have the power of it, the wisdom of it and we are increasing in understanding and gaining comprehension into God’s wisdom and power and how He has abounded to us.

He has abounded toward us and we begin to feel His excellence, quality, brilliance and supremacy of distinction.  That may sound faintly inadequate, and sure we may intellectually bow to all of it, but to really feel God’s greatness is beyond an intellectual ascent.

The way God works is so diametrically opposite of our mental reasoning.  Christ is a stumbling-block to the mind, foolishness to the humanly wise.  But to the one who receives the abounding of His wisdom and prudence He is beautiful.

He radically changes our hearts when we receive Him as our Savior, and we experience His power, wisdom and understanding when we bow to Him as our Lord.  We unite to Him in love and because we are drawn to unite to Jesus we are also drawn to unite to others who see in Christ what we see in Christ.

We are the called out ones, the ecclesia, the church.  This is the power of God and the wisdom of God which pulls down stronghold and stops the forces of evil.

William Kelly defines this phrase wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; as a progression.  Forgiveness has been received and fully entered into.

Now we can enter into God’s thoughts of Jesus.  Christ is the wisdom of God and now we can understand all that Jesus means to God when He says this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.  God has abounded to us in all wisdom and prudence which means He’s making His deep purposes in Christ comprehensible to our heart.

F.W. Grant says we now see what God’s view is, a new federal headship.  We’re no longer under the federal headship of Adam, we under the federal headship of Christ.

J.N. Darby states it this way: by abounding to us in wisdom and understanding we are made a depository or a cache or reservoir of all His counsels and plans; that we should have the understanding of the mystery of His will.

These quotes are adaptations or my paraphrases of these men’s quotes.  But beyond all these thought and the couple of quotes expressed, sometimes stuff doesn’t make sense.

There is mental confusion at every turn, things are convoluted and puzzling.  There is uncertainty, upheaval and cerebral muddle with emotional mayhem.

As I see it the chaos and disorder is a shortfall on our part.  We’re looking at stuff from the wrong frame of reference and stilted by the mix up of our inadequate perspective.

We aren’t tapping in the riches wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and understanding; we need to empty ourselves before the Lord in helplessness and need.

Allow ourselves to be so vulnerable and exposed that we couldn’t displace a fly from the tip of our nose or wipe the spit from tickling our chin.  This is the necessity of brokenness that clears the independent pride and lets Him clarify His overall plan and individual purposes that He has for us.

As we continue in His word, meditate in it, give ourselves to it as our only life breath, we’ll know the truth and the truth, the rich abundance of its wisdom and understanding will make us free.