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Eph. 1:15 Prayers Peculiarities part 13

Activate in Making Continual Requests v.15-23

Clarify the Motivation of a Personal Concern

Prayers Motivation v.15

Stimulated by a good report Wherefore I also after I heard

Stimulated by a Good Response

In Attitude of your faith in the Lord Jesus

In Affection and love unto all the saints

No one likes to be burdened. But we need to reexamine prayer burdens. Instead of seeing them as excessive loads that hamper and put us into wrinkled fraught we have to reconsider. They are our break through not our break down. These burdens are the jet fuel that runs the rocket ships of prayer.

We need to be troubled to triumph. The disturbances and distresses of life are the launch pad of a communion that connects. This is our link up to the eternal storehouses of our riches and wealth in the power of Christ.

Prayer is something that is supposed to relax but why does it instead often perplex? We often hear someone say they do certain things to unwind like watch a movie, take a walk or go buy something new.

How about really lightening up to a reorientation to accessing our loosening in the peace of God that passes understanding? The Spirit affirms that this is our alleged unwind that is incomprehensible or out of this world.

Prayer is this great mystery, but why? I like the assertion in

Eph. 3:4 whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ

The mystery of Christ is many things. When we come to God in prayer we are kneeling in our heart before the throne of grace next to Jesus who is bowing before the Father with us?

What a sensation to realize His arms are around us every time we pray. That is a great way to unwind in the mystery of Christ. When we pray, we need to scrutinize. Are we coming in Adam or in Christ?

Adam came in the fear of guilt. Not in the boldness of Christ. Adam slithered into the hiding of failures in the bushes. Not in the freedom of knowing the forgiveness of Jesus. Adam came in the false works of fig leaves and not in the pure garments of Jesus. Do we pray feeling we did this and that so we deserve this and that?

We’re to come in Christ dressed in His robes of righteousness covering our entire being from head to foot. No fear with God’s righteousness on, my person and offering to bring.

Mary came at the wedding of Cana in John 2 telling Jesus they we’re out of beverage. Do we come with our lacks and others needs? Jesus rebuked her about the divine versus the human, our timing and God’s timing, the Sovereign versus the conditional temporary uncertain short term issues.

Is beverage that important? Well yes, it is. But Jesus did nothing unless it was in the Father’s timing and will. The dynamic of resting in His timing and yet imploring Him in confidence is a great mystery between the human and divine.

The rebuke is interesting. What was it like to have carried Jesus in her womb, knowing He was conceived by the Spirit miraculously, what a mystery.

What was it like to watch a perfect baby, a perfect boy and child, a perfect teen ager and now a perfect man? Really it’s no different for us. We have this perfect person living within by His Spirit and it’s the mystery of Christ.

But the rebuke, why? One issue is Mothers are great manipulators of their sons and the son needed the timing of the Father.

Here again are we coming in Adam or in Christ. Are we praying in the flesh or in the Spirit? Are we relaxing in Christ’s timing or ours?

We can’t manipulate God in our prayers. He can make water into wine, He can make something out of nothing, He can calm the wind and the waves in a word, and He can swallow us with a great fish when we idiotically jump in the sea to run from our God and our troubles.

Sons in their humanness can yield to their Mothers fleshly Adamic methodology. Christ wants us to kneel with Him and yield all to the Father. Mary understood the mystery of prayer and the rebuke of timing and the complexity of the human versus the divine, Adam versus Christ.

She answered others in the Mystery of Christ, by saying what He says do it. We need to enter in to every word that proceeds from His mouth; we need to pray with Christ’s word on our lips and in our hearts.

Prayers Motivation v.15

Stimulated by a Good Report Wherefore I also after I heard

We bring each burden to the Lord and not just once but continually and repeatedly. The things we hear are sparks of ignition of a holy flame. The news of spiritual activity in others is the stimulation of a good report of answers sent from above in the precious lives of those God has placed on our hearts.

Stimulated by a Good Response

In Attitude of your faith in the Lord Jesus

Each response becomes an explosion of joy as we see the attitudes of faith in Christ enacted and developing from faith to deeper enlightenments of faith.

Faith is the wireless connection of prayer to God. I’m amazed with Wi-Fi. I remember being in a large strawberry field with my truck years ago in California resting from driving. I could see nothing for miles around and I got a Wi-Fi connect to the internet. That still amazes me.

We have a wireless connection to the Lord. Every time I pray I believe God speaks to the person I’m praying for. They can be on the other side of the world and I can spiritually Wi-Fi them through Christ.

Now the sovereignty of God and the free will of man are another thing and I don’t know all the ins and outs of man’s nature of refusals, rejection and turning their back on the Spirit of Christ. But I know I can ask the Lord over and over to knock on their hearts door or arrange circumstances or supply the conditions influencing the lives of those I pray for and He hears and answers.

The Spirit tells us we have not because we ask not. There’s a simple solution to that. Ask and it will be given, seek and we will find, knock and it will be opened up. The Greek structure is keeping asking keep seeking and keep knocking.

In Affection and love unto all the saints

Our affections are stirred and stimulated and the faiths of those we are waving before the Lord are opened up into a developing and deepening of compassion and love for Christ and His own.

The wave offering is an interesting image in which the worshiper lifted up the offering and waved it before the Lord. What a privilege we have to lift the lives of those we are burdened for up to our God.

Jesus says the one who is forgiven much loves much. The more we feel His loving arms of forgiveness around us the more we will want and pray that others He places in our lives will feel the same.

Eph. 1:13-14 Spirit Sensitivity part 12

Comfort in Our Riches From The Spirit v.13-14

     Declare How The Spirit Pursues v.13      In whom ye also trusted,

Define How The Spirit Proclaims             after that ye  heard the word of truth,

                                                                                     the gospel of your salvation:

Display How The Spirit Persuades    in whom also after that ye believed

Detect How The Spirit Protects  ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise

     Diagnose How The Spirit Is Our Pledge v.14  Which is the earnest of our

                                                                                                inheritance

Direct How The Spirit Preserves until the redemption of the purchased possession

Discipline in How The Spirit Promotes Praise unto the praise of his glory.

God the Spirit is now considered in this prison letter.  The purposes of the Lord in Paul’s trial of imprisonment are relational and compositional.  He has the same plan in each of our lives in the things He allows to on the physical scale bind us.

The Lord talks through us to others in our bondages and limitations as we relax in His purposes for us in the restrictive confines He allows us in.  The squeeze of life, the cold dark bars of our cell, and what can be looked at as a hampering flaw, obstructive fetter, or shackling encumbrance all have a purpose.

Each aspect in our experience, personality and disappointing impediments, whether financial, occupational, relational or physical debilitation, when handed over to the Spirits plan, these become a work of art, a masterpiece of beauty and a symphonic concerto for God’s glory and others growth and encouragement.

Comfort in Our Riches From The Spirit v.13-14 

 Declare How The Spirit Pursues v.13      In whom ye also trusted,

Trust is the key to everything; faith in the Lord is the means and the only explanation that unlocks the door of our imprisonment to release our soul in His praise and plans.

Define How The Spirit Proclaims         after that ye heard the word of truth,

the gospel of your salvation:

We have to have ears to hear, and attentiveness to the Spirits words.  There is a constant need for an inclination to the truth of His precious word to us.  He will individualize His word to our specific need.

The Spirit with precision and detailed explicitness gives express, identifiable expressions to deliver us from every situation.  It may not be from but possibly through and more than likely in the circumstance of distress.

There is the good news of salvation but this news is not limited just to our eternal destiny.  It’s news for every aspect of deliverance to the things that bind us in this life.  The gospel of our salvation is not just deliverance for the penalty of our sin but its liberation from the power of our sin also.

We can’t just cave in and say we can’t change.  Receiving power from the Spirits indwelling is the capacity to turn our sorrows to a Psalm and our prisons into powerful life changing truths for not only for us but all we’re called to touch.

Display How The Spirit Persuades    in whom also after that ye believed

Faith is developed and strengthened in the frictions of life as the Spirit not only allows our heartache but brings to us the soothing oils of His relief and comfort.  It’s after that, that we believe, and believing or resting in the Spirit is what sets us on high in the storms of tragedy and impending disaster.  We lean in faith as He persuades, influences, sways and wins over our heart and trust in His ways and pleading in and through us.

Detect How The Spirit Protects   ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise

The sealing of the Holy Spirit is the authenticating He achieves in our life, the proof of our reality as God’s family members.  He protects us by His securing seal of not only approval but of assurances.  Because of this authorization of endorsement we have the documents of being processed as genuine in the life of God.

His backing and credential is written in and upon us and we can’t ever lose or be voided of our perfect identity in Christ.  We are the genuine article of undeniable reality as God’s own.  Sealed is the thought of a being bona fide as the real deal.

Diagnose How The Spirit Is Our Pledge v.14 Which is the earnest of our inheritance

An earnest is a foretaste or preview of what is in store for us.  The earnest was the down payment which insured the payment in full which was to follow for the full purchase.  The Spirit of God is our pledge, a deposit of a life which will soon be transferred to all the infinite wealth and riches of eternity and rapture in the mansions and glory of heaven.  The Spirit is our guarantee, the security deposit, the promise of the full unfathomable payment which is soon to come.

Direct How The Spirit Preserves  until the redemption of the purchased possession,

The Spirit is preserving us; He keeps us, safeguards us, protects and stores us until we’re finally taken to our real home in heaven.  It’s hard to imagine anything which would be better as we can get a massive comfort zone on this earth dwelling scenario.

That’s why the comfort zones get knock around a bit from time to time.  So we’ll learn real life in Jesus and His Spirit.  Heaven is infinitely better from every aspect which almost seems ridiculous to say.  Heaven is the real definition of home.  It’s amazing and intriguing that we are actually designed for paradise.

Discipline in How The Spirit Promotes Praise  unto the praise of his glory.

The deeper we enter in to all that the Spirit has done, is doing and will continue to do the greater will be our praise to His glory.

Eph. 1:11-13a Where’s Jesus our Wealth In Christ part 11

Captivate in Our Riches in Christ v.7-12

Evaluate For Us How We Are Satisfied v.11-12

Impact Us With Value v.11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance

Impale Us With Vision being predestinated according

Implement Us With Veneration v.12 That we should be to the praise of his glory

Imprint Us With Validation who first trusted in Christ to the purpose of him

Identify For Us Victory who works all things after the counsel of his own will

Comfort in Our Riches From The Spirit v.13-14

Declare To Us How The Spirit Pursues v.13 In whom ye also trusted,

I often feel I fall so short of the expressions I want to yield in writing as words are jockeyed to isolate the feelings about the text and our experience of Jesus in it.

How absorbed or attracted and engrossed are we in Christ as we face each day. Paul was in prison and writing to others from a very bleak surrounding and abusive conditions.

That seems like such an impossibility to encourage others in their riches while you’re in an impoverished condition. The jail system in the present time in Turkey is extremely debasing.

I’ve been in Turkey and seen the prison compounds from outside. I’ve spent time with others when I was on missionary teams who spent time imprisoned in the late 60s and early 70’s because they tried to share Jesus with people in Turkey.

They had been beat while in jail, they ended up with fungal infections and other skin irritations that we’re incurable and caused constant itching.

I knew girls who we’re in jail there who got head lice so bad that they lost large amounts of their hair so that their scalp density was very scarce. All they had done is share their affection for Jesus with others.

They had the beauty of Christ in their facial expressions. They left a lasting impression on my mind and feelings.

Now we have a current Politian’s who wants to laud this medieval slave mongering culture in the Islamic countries. Cultures which hate the freedom and forgiveness found in the liberation of Christ Jesus in person’s life.

When Paul said He knew how to be abased and he knew how to abound he wasn’t talking about abounding in a sleek convertible on a spring day a little north of Palm Springs.

He was abounding in the filth and depredating degradation of prison and all while feeling deep affections in Christ. We are living really in the final days of the affluences of this world, as I see it.

Jesus told us that in this period we’re in, that people are going to say Christ is over here, and Christ is over there. We can look for Him in these various places and come up empty.

The so called Church remakes of some kind of religious Woodstock that we’re seeing in our present day, which simulates this externalized absorption in some kind of amalgamation of amplified noise immersion and lauding of Jesus in frantic clatter called music, but really is this Jesus?

I don’t want to launch much further in the direction I’m taking but the rapt fascination with informal and formalistic flavors for religious incorporation to produce a valuing in Christ and hopefully engage our spirits in worship are really worthy of challenge. Let’s leave that alone for now.

Are our affections for Jesus leading us into a path with Him of real life change and deepening character? Are we energizing each other for Christ or alienating and pushing away.

Estrangement and divorce are as rampant in Christianity as if we we’re living the lives of movie stars. Desperate housewives and disaffected husbands are us. Relational rupture is growing faster than the aids virus.

Chemistry is a name of one of the dot com dating venues and it’s an interesting grip we’re longing after. We want to find a material that will engage and involve us in a meaningful relational draw. We want to be embroiled in real love that rivets our affections.

Like the song The Who sang at Woodstock we’re crying in our soul the same thing. See me, feel me, touch me heal me. I often have wondered if this echo of listening to you, gazing at you, following you that The Who bellowed out in odd moans in a retake at half time at last year’s super bowl isn’t the yearning of our culture.

They screamed, on you I see the millions, on you I get opinions, in you I see the glory, I get excitement at your feet. Yes, I hear the lyrics but I see it only in Christ and find that the total completion can only be in Jesus.

He is the Chemistry that can bring relationship to this passion we long for. We’re torn up in the discord, the fracture and fissure of rapport and connection. We want affinity, empathy, union and a bond that will complete us. I find it only in Jesus and He’s worthy of our passionate pursuit.

In verses 11-12 we sum up the introduction on our riches in Christ.

Our first section was our riches in Paul’s introductory greeting. This gave us his situation and the expressions of his relational connection.

Then Paul explores our riches in God our Sovereign which looked into what’s considered eternity past.

The third section of riches are the verses we are here finishing. These are thoughts on God our Savior, Jesus Christ and that looks at history and what He achieved for us in His coming to earth, intersecting world events with His life, death and resurrection and our blessing in Him.

Incredible that Jesus actually splits the timetable of history in half into BC and AD. No one in time has ever made that collision of personal impact. History is truly HIS Story.

Next we’ll look at our riches in God the Spirit. This is present history or current experiences as the Spirit works in our lives all the riches of our relationship in God.

There is an interesting play in words on the “we” of verses 11 and 12 and the word “ye or you” in verse 13.

The “we” refers to the Hebrew believers and the “you” refer to the Gentile or all outside of the Jewish ancestry who had opened their hearts to Christ.

These both are all one and make up this new entity and unit of humanity called the Church the body of Christ. The Church local is two or three gathered together in Jesus name, and the Church universal is all local gatherings throughout the earth.

What we see today in the Church is both what is true and false in structure, teaching and practice. There is the Spirit lead Church, which is the Christ led, truth exalting loyal followers.

Then unfortunately there is a great development in that which is completely alien to God’s Spirit. This is that which is spawned in the natural inclinations or is fleshly and carnal. It is grieving to the Spirit of Christ.

Then there are satanic fabrications, forgeries that are rampant with incredible falsehood. These are the counterfeit Church, imitations and phony shams which may have actual demonic powers that simulate and conjure up a form of power, influence and character reproduction and sensation but it all leads to the depths of hell.

Hopefully as we progress through this letter we can expand on the true and warn of the false experiences and exposures that are floating around.

Let’s sum up a few more riches in Christ.

Evaluate For Us How We Are Satisfied v.11-12

Impact Us With Value v.11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance,

To obtain or acquire a privilege and benefit is a special honor. This inheritance or future entitlement is in view as already in possession.

It didn’t need to be earned or merited based on a payment or purchased by some sum of imbursement. Our inheritance is not secured by some achieved behavior or consistency of practice.

This inheritance is a value of the future that we possess already in and through Christ. The frame of thought that’s being expressed is that we as believers can be impacted with the immense value of our future lifestyle in this coming joint reign with Christ now.

This is a privileged asset and joy of anticipation to be savored in the present. “In whom” is our benefactor, and “we have obtained” means that the right and opportunity was already secured. This is another aspect to our wonderful mystery and its revelation.

Impale Us With Vision being predestinated according to the purpose of him

Here is another facet or piece of predetermination and that is that God purposed to bless His chosen Jewish believers in Christ in this future millennial gathering together around the coronation and reign of Christ on earth.

This was His purpose and goal before time and He will do it. To have the delight of this vision of the Lord as our vision circulating through our spiritual veins is a heightening prospect. This reflects on the Jewish believers and later of the Gentile believers and finally Paul point to the fact that we are all one in Christ.

Identify For Us Victory who works all things after the counsel of his own will

Knowing that God works all things, not just a few things, or some scattered events, but all things after the counsel of His own will.

All things are a perception that needs to stay in our awareness. The word counsel means a reasoned deliberation. God is consistent to His promises and principles and articulates His character and attributes in precise expressions to us which all blend with His will and plan.

The pattern is comprehensible and clear. He includes us in His counsel as trusted participants and allows us to commune in all His interests and intimacies.

Implement Us With Veneration v.12 That we should be to the praise of his glory

Imprint Us With Validation who first trusted in Christ

Here again we see the “we” which would be inclusive of Paul and all the Jewish believers who were bold to step out in faith in their promised Messiah, the Christ.

They were those who first trusted, the apostles, the early believers in Jerusalem who saw Christ ascend after the resurrection and waited in worship and prayer on the Lord in those early chapters of the Churches history in the Acts. They were to be credited with praise to God’s glory for their stand of faith.

Comfort in Our Riches From The Spirit v.13-14

Declare To Us How The Spirit Pursues v.13 In whom ye also trusted,

The Lord didn’t just stop at Jerusalem and Judea but stretched His invitation to an intimate walk of liberation with a trust in Jesus to the uttermost parts of the earth. He is still reaching out with His compelling love and life changing personality and that is the “ye” or “you” here referred to.

Paul is connecting his thoughts and greetings to the non-Jewish believers not only during this letters reception but right up to the here and now.

If we have trusted in Jesus we are “the you” who have also trusted and evidence of the Spirit of God’s pursuing love. In believing in Him we rein with Him.

Christ who is the anointed king is like David of early years who was in exile as King. Public ridicule, chased and badgered, pursued with murderous cause by the self filled dictator of the day.

David found himself in caves with edgy followers, roamed the mountain’s and experienced deprivation and distresses.

Jesus is on the move and He will return to take His throne and we are inheritors who will soon administrate with Him. Just as each new president brings in those who agree with their principles and positions to offices of close association and influence we also will share with Christ for His glory.

Eph. 1:9b-10 Satisfied With His Sympathy, Scheme, Stewardship, Summation, Sphere & Solution part 10

Captivate in Our Riches in Our Savior v.7-12          

     Excite Us With What We Are Shown   v.9-10

 Involve Us In His Sympathy   according to his good pleasure

Impact Us With His Scheme         which he hath purposed in himself 

 Itemize For Us  His Stewardship  That in the dispensation of the fullness of times

Illuminate For Us His Summation he might gather together in one all things in

                                                                       Christ

Introduce Us To His Sphere both which are in heaven, and which are on earth

Immerse Us In His Solution  even in him:

I reminded back to 1971, I was stationed in Wichita, Kansas and would jog 5 miles daily to stay in shape for basketball.  I played on the base team which allowed for some neat travel and fun duty.

I would review various memory verses as I jogged and try to pray.  I wish I still had the ambition to do that now, the combining of the physical exercise with the spiritual exercise.  My landing gear is too warn out and damaged and the central processing unit isn’t what it was either.

There wasn’t a Navigator military ministry on the Air Force base so I met with a Nav. business men’s group off base.  I led 3 individual studies on base with men and held two group studies which totaled 5 studies I was responsible for leading per week plus 2 I attended.

I look back at my youthful zeal and all this idealistic vision I had and how I wanted to pioneer this base effort.  I would get all down about the progress of things and call this business man to share my discouragement.

He would always tell me to read Eph. Phil. and Col. and then to call him back afterward if I still felt down.  I look back and always think that was unique advice.  It’s amazing that Paul was in prison when he wrote these letters and that he had these relational insights in such a dismal backdrop in his life.

Prison time can’t be a high point in anyone’s life but Paul accrued his down time into a positive experience in his walk with the Lord.

Involve Us In His Sympathy  according to his good pleasure  

This is a clarification and enlightenment from the Lord where He disperses His sympathy.  The Spirit is explaining the connection we’re given with His tenderness in the patience of His purposes and pleasure.

His good pleasure is the delight, gratification, and satisfaction which God has in blessing us.  He allows only what is good for us in our life.

Everything that is permitted is to deepen our intimacy in Christ as we respond in faith through His securing sympathies.  Nothing separates us from the love of God and all things work together for good for us.

According to His good pleasure means we don’t earn God’s attention or blessing based on us talking Him into anything or because we’ve done certain things to warrant and guarantee His satisfaction.

His approval and liking is not based on us but based in His character of goodness.  James says we error by thinking good comes from anything other than God.  That seems like an obvious conclusion but do we believe it and live in the reality of it?

James 1:16-17 do not err, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

The caution not to err is don’t be deceived as to the source of good.  Don’t embrace an opinion that imagines that good comes from anything but God.  God is the spring and supply of all good.

Everything the Lord does for us is according to His good pleasure.  Pleasure is that thing that delights God and is satisfying to Him.  According to, means it’s not a random, capricious, or accidental.  God is not haphazard but systematic in the deliberate distribution of goodness and it pleases Him to do it all for us.

Impact Us With His Scheme  which he hath purposed in himself

The Lord has a scheme in each thing that takes place; it’s all according to method and format.  Each detail in our lives has a purpose and it is to all lead us in a progressive interactivity in our relationship with Him.

Purpose means to set before one’s self with an intention, a point, a goal and objective.  The Lord is working in us based on the sympathy of His goodness, a scheme of a determined goal and a stewardship of timing.

Itemize For Us  His Stewardship  That in the dispensation of the fullness of times

A stewardship is a dispensation.  Dispensation is a word which means administration, or governmental management.  Many of the conservative fabric of our culture are grieving our present dispensation of national governmental details.

We are under the Obama administration or dispensation.  That’s just in the confines of the present, but when we consider the universe, as to God’s dealing is concerned, or the spiritual dispensation of this age, we’re under the dispensation of grace currently, which is under a broader umbrella of the new covenant.

The dispensation referred to in v.10, is the dispensation of the fullness of times.

There is an important difference between the fullness of time singular and the fullness of times plural. The fullness of time is referred to in Gal. 4:4 as the first coming of Christ when He came in the form of a baby, then matured through childhood, and ministered in His final expressions for three years until His murder or surrender of Himself for us.

The fullness of times is the second coming of Christ and more specifically the millennial reign of Christ where He is on earth as King of kings for a thousand years.

This is the mystery or secret which was not clear to humanity or obscure in prophetic declaration but is now being openly explained.

Illuminate For Us His Summation  he might gather together in one all things in Christ

This is the period when everything is culminated under Christ’s domination.  Jesus Christ as a glorified man will reign over all the world in the throne of David.

Introduce Us To His Sphere        both which are in  heaven, and which are on earth;

The sphere of authority will be over all of heaven and earth.

Immerse Us In His Solution  even in him:

We are illuminated to this great truth, introduced to the grand sphere of exaltation that Christ will reign over, and immersed in the wonderful solution that all will find healing and help in Him.  Christ will have total universal dominion.

Eph. 1:9a Rich In Reality part 9 

Captivate in Our Riches in Our Savior v.7-12           

    Excite Us With What We Are Shown  v.9-10

          Identify His Secrets  v.9  Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, 

God reveals His secrets to us, shows us how He feels toward us and these choice implications of His emotions and heart for us is illuminated.  There is a general sense in which all of truth is a mystery for it is not intellectually comprehensible but unveiled and illuminated by the Spirit of God.

ICor.2: 14 But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Each of us in our natures are influenced and controlled by instincts, intuition and impulses.  In Proverbs 3:5-6 we are told to

Trust in the LORD with all your heart; and lean not unto your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths.

This word, own understanding, which we’re not to lean on, is the thought of human logic.  We have logic and we get all enamored about thinking a thing through, talking it out, writing it down, but our logic is opposed to God’s logic.

In Isaiah 55:6-8 we’re told:

Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.  For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the LORD.

Our thoughts at their best are so far short of God’s thoughts and what we think will work out the best is so often oppositional and contradictory to the weavings of God’s tapestry.  The question of our conflagrations about contradictions is stymied in the fact that the principle of contradiction is based on man’s logic?

Can we place what’s contradictory to us next to what’s contradictory to God?  That’s an easy one really that two contradictory statements can’t be true.  The whole issue of saying that truth is contradictory is a failure to identify that God is the only being that is Logical.

God is true and every man is a liar.  In the beginning was the word, the Logos or logic and the logos or logic is God.  God’s truth is not contradictory, nor is it conflicting, incongruous, ambiguous or inconsistently paradoxical.

No we are the ones who are at odds and the opposition and the clash we’re banging at are our minds and thoughts don’t jive with His mind and thoughts.  God is rational we are irrational, God is reasonable we are unreasonable, God is wise and we are foolish.

We can say that God’s revelation, His word as a whole is a mystery but in reality we’re the mystery for thinking God is a mystery and stupidly rejecting God.

God in love would not reject us, will not refuse us and has designed to receive us and make us rich in what is so mysterious to us, which is His will and decisive actions for us.

The Bible is not a mystery or a paradox, we are and our thoughts, feelings and behavior are.  Para means contrary and doxa is opinion or thought.

God doesn’t have contrary thoughts and opinions we do.  These are reasons not to lean on our own understanding.  Often we hear someone say God didn’t answer my prayer.

He actually did answer our prayer; the problem is that we’re leaning on the incorrect comprehension so we don’t understand the answer.

We are only rich with reality because God has made known unto us the mystery of his will.

Proverbs informs us: For the Lord gives wisdom: out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.  This is where we show our real belief.

Wisdom, knowledge and understanding come from his mouth.  Out of His mouth is a phrase that is representative of illumination, interpretation and application of His word.

Why waste time with other mouths when God’s mouth is the only one that’s productive in explaining the mysteries of life?  Everything else is fantasy and fiction which lead to flights of imagination in the whims of futility, pointlessness and hollowness.

In recap we are blessed in the wealth of God’s wonders and the magnification of His mysteries are manifested to us through His loving patience and persistent enlightening explanations.  He draws us to seek Him where He can be found in His words of wonder where He makes known unto us the mystery of his will,.

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.

Eph.1:5-6 Prospered by Predetermination part 4

   Communicate to us Our Riches

       in Our Sovereign Father v.3-6

          Animate Your Plans   v.5

               Decode Your Predetermined Enactment  in love, Having predestinated us 

                                                                 unto the adoption of sons by Jesus Christ to himself,

Detail Your Pleasant Expectation  according to the good pleasure of his will,

        Affirm To Us Your Point   v.6

           Bless Us With Your Powerful Enablement To the praise of the glory of his

                                                                                                 grace

Beautify Us With Your Positive Endorsement   wherein he hath made Us

                                                                                                          accepted in the beloved.

Decode Your Predetermined Enactment  in love, Having predestinated us unto the 

                                                                                 adoption of sons by Jesus Christ to himself 

Now we have a few more confusing terms which don’t especially translate into our present life experiences.  Let me explain it this way.  If I was very rich and had a thriving business I might name it Midkiff’s Company Inc.

Now if I had all kinds of forethought and anticipative planning I could name the prosperous business Midkiff and Sons with the thought of including my eight children under the term sons having in mind both my 4 daughters and 4 sons sharing in all the privilege and riches of my company.  That is some wealthy companionship.

God our father in His infinite fathomless love has predestinated or predetermined us to the adoption of sons.  In the Roman culture, which was different than ours, a child in the family didn’t have the privileges of the family or any of the prosperity or profit from the family anymore than a common employee that had some minor privileges by labor.

When the children got to a certain age they could be adopted by the father who placed them into full status of the family riches.  It was called the adoption of sons.  This is the doctrine of predestination.

Election is a predetermination to salvation.  Predestination is a predetermination to son-ship or all the privileges of the Father.

Both experiences and blessings are entitlements to our spiritual riches.  These riches were preplanned, unearned, and are encountered, expressed and embraced in Christ, through Christ and by Christ.

Detail Your Pleasant Expectation  according to the good pleasure of his will,

The concept of God as a father is a beautiful family image.  God is the creator of relationship which is something we all long for.  He, as a father, is pleasant to be with and He has vast plans to share His good pleasure.  The most pleasing thing to God is to have us near Him.  He wants to surround Himself with us.  Fathers often want to have enough wealth and property to build mansions for their children to live near to Him.

Affirm To Us Your Point   v.6

     Bless Us With Your Powerful Enablement To the praise of the glory of his grace,

This is a reality; God our heavenly Father is pleased with us.  His deep joy is in us being as close to Him as possible, that is His plan and pleasure, and the more we delight in the glory of His grace and His delight in our nearness,  the deeper we are induced to praise and evoke glory for His powerfully enabling drawing of us nearer and nearer.

As our father He is incredibly available to us, for no matter what time it is in the day or night, He is available, He enjoys our voice, delights in our desires and shares all His riches with us in a celebration of the intimacy of relationship.  How can we not burst in admiration for our Father, extol His glory and acclaim His Grace?

Beautify Us with Your Positive Endorsement  wherein he hath made Us accepted

                                                                                             in the beloved.

He pours out additional rich blessing in giving us the greatest favor imaginable.  There is something immensely relaxing about being accepted by another person.  To be accepted by God in the beloved is the peak tranquility of all.

The illustration is inadequate but the favorite position of my little 3 pound poodle is to rest on my chest as I lounge back in a comfortable chair.  He relaxes there with his brown eyes staring at my face.

God has made us accepted in the beloved.  We have been positioned in the riches of a position of Eternal adoration.  He adores us and we adore Him.  We love Him because He first loved us.  We reach out to Him because He reached out to us.  We pour out our hearts to Him because He poured out His life for us.  We have a God who has lifted us up to Himself, embraced us in Christ and filled us with His Spirit.

Alford says:

“The end, God’s end, in our predestination to adoption is, that the glory, glorious nature, brightness and majesty, and kindliness and beauty,—of His grace might be the object of men and angel’s praise: both as it is in Him, ineffable and infinite,—and exemplified in us, its objects.”

The term accepted can be translated as freely bestowed or richly favored.  The riches of God’s grace makes us completely accepted, it is freely bestowed on us and we are richly favored in Christ through it.  Beloved is the word, one loved par excellence, the Son of His permanent love.  In other words we are placed into the one who is in a state of being constantly loved.  Being there in loves embrace is a peace and delight that is described as joy unspeakable and full of glory.