Isaiah - Verse By Verse

Thought:  To me, a constant mental state of thankfulness benefits both us and the ones we are thankful for.

Question:  Have I prayed for those people I appreciate?

Scripture:  Ephesians 1:16 (NIV):  "I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers."

Gratefulness is a wonderful thing to possess.  A fountain of thanks makes a heart and life attractive to everyone around.  Paul has gratefulness for the Ephesian believers, and probably they too have thanks for him.  It lifts them all together and promotes love.  It keeps them each in the forefront of prayer, too.  Anyone for whom we pray is someone who has found a way into our heart and is probably someone for whom we give thanks.

Prayer:  Lord, help me to be like the Apostle Paul and never cease praying for my fellow Christians.  Amen. 

Thought:  To me, nothing unifies peoples or nations like faith in Christ; no love is more productive than the love shared in the community of believers.

Question:  Have you grasped this faith and entered into this love?

Scripture:  Ephesians 1:15 (NIV):  "For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints,"

Paul is encouraged by the Ephesian believers.  And so it should be for us too, that other Christians lift us and help us, as we hear about their faith in Christ.  Love between believers expands and strengthens and grows greater.  It encompasses "all the saints" as we delight in the idea of all kinds of peoples and nations united deep in heart in the things of God.  We are brothers from deep inside as we depend together on the same Savior.

Prayer:  Lord, we cannot thank You enough for allowing us to enjoy mutual love in the brotherhood as begun by faith in Christ.  Amen. 

Thought:  To me, the Holy Spirit is indeed God, indeed powerful and indeed personal.  He is as much God as is the Father or the Son. 

Question:  Is my inheritance set in the future--in God's Kingdom? 

Scripture:  Ephesians 1:14 (NIV):  "who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession--to the praise of his glory."

The Holy Spirit, that third member of the Trinity, is brought into us while we're here on earth, as a down-payment. (Like earnest money).  The rest of the installments and the final pay-off come later.  They come in Heaven where our redemption is gloriously finalized.  We don't have the substance of our inheritance just yet, do we?  But like a son alive at home with his Dad, the money is there waiting until his death puts it into his hand.  So when we die, the reality that God "possesses" us then becomes vivid and apparent.  The Holy Spirit comes to us because The Father cannot, and The Son already did and is now returned to The Father, bodily.  This Holy Spirit enters, seals and guarantees our inheritance.  Could anyone break such a guarantee?  No.  It's unbreakable, and therefore, once again, brings tremendous praise to the Name of Our God.  What a God we have!!  What a God to be possessed by!!

Prayer:  Most High God, thank You for possessing me, redeeming me, giving me an inheritance from You and with You and guaranteeing it through the work of the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

Thought:  To me, it is clear that the Holy Spirit participates in our choice for Christ and comes to indwell us at the time of our salvation.  God does all the work!

Question:  Have you heard and believed the gospel and been marked and sealed by the Holy Spirit?

Scripture:  Ephesians 1:13 (NIV):  "And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.  Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit,"

How does eternal life come to us?  First, we hear the scriptures, the Word, the gospel (good news of Jesus' life).  Second, we believe it.  If we believe, then we immediately are marked, and sealed into permanent salvation.  Salvation is not kept up to date, as it were, from that point on, by our behaviors being kept in line.  No.  We are saved by belief and we are kept saved by the sealed promise of the Holy Spirit.  What promise is this?  The Holy Spirit enters us when we believe.  He stays, like a seal showing permanence, privacy and ownership over the flap of a letter's envelope.  This seal, however, cannot be tampered with or removed.  God promises to own us from that point on.  Therefore our salvation hinges not on our behaviors but on God's promise.  Is God good for His promises?  I think so!  Can we ever behave well enough to earn our own salvation?  I don't think so!  "Only believe--only believe!"  That's what salvation is.  This "believing" includes us in Christ, we are told here.  Here Paul again uses the term "in Christ."  We get "in Christ" by believing, we stay "in Christ" by abiding in that same place we entered to believe, that is, by agreeing with God we needed a Savior--by confession and repentance of sin.  To be "in Christ" is to be sinless by His blood over us and dependent on His blood day by day.

Prayer:  Father, thank You for "covering all the bases" with Your thorough salvation! You've given the gospel, helped us to believe it, marked us out as Yours and sealed us with Your Holy Spirit.  Praise You, God!  Amen.

Thought:  To me, it is a wondrous thing to become, through saving faith in Christ, an avenue of praise to His name!

Question:  What provision of God makes you prise Him the most?

Scripture:  Ehpesians 1:12 (NIV):  "in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory."

This "we" probably refers to the apostles, (Acts 1: 2 and 3), those found in the upper room at Pentecost, (Acts 1:13 and 14) and the 120 believers at that time (Acts 1:15).  But the church at Ejphesus is also "first" in two ways, I believe.  It was Paul's first field of outreach and is listed first in the list of churches mentioned by John in Revelation.  These early believers, or first ones to receive the gospel as it proceeded out from Jerusalem after Pentecost, are the beginning of elected ones, chosen ones, that Paul speaks of when he talks of predestined souls.  He points out that those saints are "for the praise of his glory."  As soon as people receive Christ, as did these first converts in Jerusalem or in Ephesus, they become an ornament upon God's Being.  They shine forth praise and gladness that this unspeakable grace of a Holy God would allow them to come to Him, know Him, attach to Him forever--in spite of all their sins.  Holy, Holy, Holy is God, though I am not!  Loving and gracious is He to me, though I sin against Him day by day.  This is His glory, not mine.

Prayer:  Most Holy God, help us to truly bring praise, due to Your glory, to all those around us.  Amen. 

Thought:  To me, predestination is easy to understand if we view it from "God's side" (unlimited power) instead of from "our side" (finite minds and very little power at all).

Question:  What is God's central purpose of will?

Scripture:  Ephesians 1:11 (NIV):  "In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will,"

Compare this with verses 4 and 5:  "for he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.  In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will."  These are very similar.  But here in verse 11 we see another aspect:  that God The Father cuases His Masterplan to fit the purposes He has willed to happen.  Everything "conforms" to His purpose.  Now God would not be God if He couldn't do that.  He powerfully reigns in all events, and as Proverbs 16:4 states, "The Lord works out everything for His own ends; even the wicked for a day of disaster."  The wicked are used by God.  He may not have created the evil that rules in the hearts of the wicked, but He created their lives.  And because He is The Source of all things, He controls all things.  He is not unable to control that which He creates.  So, you are saying, why doesn't God control, or even eliminate, evil?  I feel God freely allows evil to exist, to move about and to ripen in certain situations, so that true choices for good may be authentically made.  You cannot  decide to choose good if no evil, (not a suppressed, limited evil, but a full-blown evil), exists as an option.  When the fullness of this ripening of evil is completed, THEN God will destroy evil.  We see this in Revelation.  Thus since God is fully in control, He has indeed set a Masterplan into motion.  Predestination of souls is no objectional problem when we understand it from God's side.  It merely means God knows all things in advance.  So, those who would choose Him are known by Him and thus destined beforehand as "chosen ones."  And they are not choice by merit, only by their heart's desire to select God.  God loves those who want Him, choose Him, decide for Him--not against Him.  These are His beloved, adopted sons.  And, to me, the central purpose of His will is to expand love out from Himself into His creatures by causing them, through choice, to love Him in return, to choose Him over evil.

Prayer:  Dear God, I know I can relax in Your care and trust You.  You will "work out everything" so that all happenings push us to Your pre-determined goal:  the victory of good over evil.  Amen. 

Thought:  To me, this verse emphasizes the supreme importance of Jesus Christ.  He is the one Head over "all things in heaven and on earth."  WOW!

Question:  How is God's will put into effect?

Scripture:  Ephesians 1:10 (NIV):  "to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment--to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ."

God's will will be "put into effect" in His timing, that is, when all parts of this grand plan fit "under one head, even Christ."  What does this mean?  God's will is for good to be done.  God's will is that none should perish.  God's will is that sin, death and satan will be destroyed forever.  All of these things have already been taken care of, already accomplished, in Christ, yet time must unfold the reality of that accomplishment slowly and exactly.  Christ is Our Authority Figure at every point of God's dealing with man.  Christ was present during Creation of man; we were made in God's (Christ included) image.  Christ sustains God's Creation, we are told in Colossians, holding atoms together and preserving the cycles of life on our planet earth.  Christ is Our Precious Savior and Redeemer, The Incarnate Father, coming among us to understand, aid, comfort and save.  Christ will judge all men, appointed by His Father to do so because The Father realizes Jesus is the right man for this job, having lived as a man Himself.  Here then we see Christ past, present and future.  God The Father is gathering everything spiritual and carnal together in Christ.  He is putting His Son in authority over heaven and earth.  He has done so in the past, before the foundations of the earth were laid, He is doing so with extended grace in the present, and God will do so in the future when Jesus rules, reigns and conquers.  God's will will be done!  It has been done in His Son, Jesus Christ!

Prayer:  Great God and Father of Christ, thank You for the ways of Your wisdom!  Thank You for the timing of Your fulfillments in and through Your Son!  Amen. 

Thought:  To me, it is a great privilege to have a former "mystery of God" now disclosed.  Its disclosure is "in Christ"!

Question:  How is God's "good pleasure" served in His Son?

Scripture:  Ephesians 1:9 (NIV):  "And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ,"

As God lavished grace (His Life) on us and in us, He chose also to reveal something to us that had previously been hidden.  This hidden information is the mystery of His will as determined in His Son, Jesus Christ.  How was God's will for His Son a mystery to us?  Since grace in action revealed the mystery, it is clear to us now what God's will accomplished through Jesus Christ.  Prior to Jesus' advent, however, a shroud of ignorance covered humanity.  Yes, there were the scriptures with their prophetic forecasts, and the prophets with their forward vision, (both as given by God).  But not until after Jesus' resurrection did the whole plan begin to become clear and "hang together" in the understandings of men.  By Christ dying and raising we have had our spiritual eyes opened.  We see God's will clearly now.  We see His love in dramatic demonstration, as never illustrated before.  We see how much God longs to rescue us!  And we realize it is not at all only to please us, though of course we are filled with "joy unspeakable" at what Calvary gives us, but rather to please God Himself.  Yet we know that God is pleased when He pleases others.  But His act of love, as planned in His Son's life and death and new life, is first and foremost, a pleasure to Him alone.  Like Creation, this plan emerging from God, is original and unique, has no supporting helpers in its inception, and is thoroughly "good."  If God does good by sending Christ, and is pleased to have provided Him for us, we would be most deceived and foolish not to avail ourselves of this lavish provision.  Let us make use of redemption and grace while they are extended! 

Prayer:  Heavenly Father, thank You for choosing to reveal Yourself in and through Your Son, Jesus Christ.  He is the perfect Mediator and representation of You.  Amen. 

Thought:  To me, sometimes God's superabundant giving seems wasteful.  But scripture says it is "wise" and done with "understanding."  I have much to learn!

Question:  Do I know how much I really need God?

Scripture:  Ephesians 1:8 (NIV):  "that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding."

Webster defines "lavish" as "bestowed, expended, or existing in profusion; superabundant.  To bestow profusely or generously; to squander."  It comes from the old french "lavache" which means a downpour of rain.  God pours Himself into us in no small way.  If grace is God's life brought to us so we can know it and experience it, and God lavishes Himself upon us heavily, this is done in His "wisdom and understanding."  It is a wise thing for God to lavish Himself, His life, on us.  It is done because He understand it needs to be done.  Sin has wreaked havoc on our beings.  Our world is so broken.  We need God more desperately than we know.  Any problem we have, we have because we have been distanced from God.  God knows He is the Only Solution to our tangled troubles.  And so He wisely understands our need for His lavish grace.  We can't help ourselves; we must depend utterly upon Him, like an infant depends on its Mother for food, helpless to go and find it for himself.  A loving Mother would lavish her child with whatever he needs, and so does God to us.

Prayer:  Lord, I gratefully accept Your lavished love.  Help me to learn from Your superabundant giving how to lavish love on those around me!  Amen. 

Thought:  To me, redemption and forgiveness are the great pillars of the Christian experience.  The more deeply I enter into these two qualities, the more humble, thankful and full of praise to God will I be.

Question:  Have I let God redeem me?  Have I accepted His forgiveness of my sins?

Scripture:  Ephesian 1:7 (NIV):  "In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace."

"In him,"  that is, (verse 6) "the One he loves."  The Father loves His Son, Christ.  Redemption and forgiveness are parts of grace and all gifts come through Christ.  Redemption is a process of buying back.  It includes something having been lost but now newly re-acquired.  Again, because free will allowed us the possibility of evil, and because sin came into the world through Adam's choice for evil, we are all "lost."  God, however, newly re-acquires us, buys us back, and at great cost, I might add; but not at a cost to us--only to Himself.  This is redemption--God rescuing us from the awful doom of sin.  If we, however, do not regard sin as "awful", then we have no need of rescue, and we will reject redemption.  We will choose to remain in sin, delusively thinking we are better off having the power of free-will to choose sin for ourselves, and that this power has a right to be exercised--even against God Almighty Himself.  But if rebellion such as this is hated by the one who experiences it, and if he cries out in some way because of his sense of bondage in sin, wanting God instead of sins, then he can avail himself, freely, of God's desire to redeem him.  God wants to buy back everyone, but He will not buy back those who refuse Him.

Another of grace's features is forgiveness of sins.  This goes hand in hand with being bought back or redeemed.  If it is the issue of sin and our opinion of it that determines whether we rebell or not, then it is sins that must be forgiven when we make a choice to come to God.  You can't come to God and keep your sins, too.  God cannot look upon sin, thus sins must be dealt with as you come to Him.  They must be, in heart and mind, acknowledged as wrong, contrary to God, a grief to Him and His ways, and confessed as such by mouth.  Then they must also be forsaken, given up, put behind the sinner.  This is not to say they may not return to his life, they may.  They may return in moments of temptation, to then be either resisted or succombed to.  If resisted, God is praised.  If succombed to, God is still praised, because that fall can also be forgiven--seventy times seven if necessary.  Grace is pricelessly deep and raises praise because of its depth and reach.  A true believer will eventually always confess and seek forgiveness when he sins.  God's spirit within him will tell him his need to seek forgiveness.  God cannot be untrue to Himself, His own Spirit, residing in a believer.

Thus, to me, we believers have an ONGOING redemption and a CONTINUAL forgiveness of sins, as needed, throughout our walk with God.  First John tells us that we lie if we say we do not sin, (I John 1:10), but this book also tells us that a true believer cannot habitually sin against that life of God (Spirit) inside him, (I John 3:6).  Conviction will win out.  Sin will come out on the dying side because this person has the life of God inside.  This winning life of God in us is "the riches of God's grace."  Can we fathom this?  What is grace?  It is God having given His Life, Himself, to us.  God invades us, dwells in us and begins to "take over."  He will take over to the degree we allow Him to, and sin will reign in us to the degree we allow it.  I believe grace allows for a believer to have every sin committed forgiven him all through life, even if that believer is weak and gives into most sins, if not all sin temptations, that he confronts.  I believe grace allows for a believer to have his few sins forgiven in his life, when that believer is strong and resists most sins, if not all sin temptations that he confronts.  Grace covers them both, strong and weak.  Grace is able to, because grace and God are really equivalent things:  to me, grace is God in us.  This is why grace is so "rich."  Only God is really rich, thus grace is God, coming into us, whether we are strong or weak.  That is why God can predestine us.  His grace, Himself, is enough guarantee that our destiny will be held firm to the end--whether we live weakly or strongly.

Now, some would say, "then why not just let go, be weak, and go out into sin.  God's grace will cover me."  IF GOD LIVES IN US WE WON'T WANT TO CHOOSE THAT WAY.  God is love.  Love in us, by grace (God living inside), will move us away from this irresponsible abuse of grace.  Yet, I believe, we may abuse grace from time to time.  We may rationalize and, knowing we can be forgiven in the next moment, slip in this moment.  But I believe God can use these slips to teach us, even more deeply, about His Love, His grace, Himself.  He will permit abuse of His grace to show us the pricelessness of it, in the long run, at the end of process.  Else why would I John say "I would rather you not sin, but if you do, you have an Advocate, Jesus Christ, Who speaks on your behalf to the Father."  And, "if you confess your sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."  Could God turn away a true confession, even if it were the 490th time this person had committed this sin?  No.  Not if it were true.  And God knows hearts.  He knows when a confession is true and sincere.  Only He knows for sure.  The richness of God's grace, His life living in us, takes every sincere and good motive of the human heart, and honors it, causing Jesus' blood to wash away deeds done against our own hearts by our own bodies in the grip of sinful desire.

Prayer:  Help me, Oh God, to fully accept your very rich gifts of redemption and forgiveness, and in so doing, to never abuse them.  Amen. 

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