Ephesians commentary continuation! Read on !!

Paul's Letter to the Ephesians.
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1:1 In the first verse, Paul is quite clear that he is an 'apostle' of Christ Jesus.....by the will of God. He makes this comment despite not knowing Jesus personally during his life in Roman Palestine. Paul feels justified in Christ himself, in making this comment. His work for Jesus and knowledge of the mind of Christ himself seemingly equips himself to make this comment and appropriate this description to himself. He also sees this as a justification of his calling. Paul feels so divinely called that he can righfully claim divine choice to be known as an apostle of Jesus Christ, if even only by default. Taking Paul's life in toto from his miraculous conversion where Jesus actually appeared to him in a divine visitation on the road to Damascus as he was going to persecute more Christians (Acts 9) to his ceaseless work after that for the sake of Christ's kingdom across the then entire known Meditterranean world, striving against all hardships to propagate the kingdom of God against all odds and against so many powerful forces, including finally all-powerful Rome, maybe we also can say with Paul and definitely with our Lord as well, well done good and faithful servant, you deserve this ultimate accolade of being an apostle of our Lord and one of the chosen few, perhaps the man only really worthy to replace Judas Iscariot, the traitor who betrayed Jesus Christ in the garden of Gethsemane.

In the second part of the address of this letter, Paul makes it very clear that he is addressing the believers in Ephesus in today's Turkey, those people in this Greek city in Asia minor who believed in Jesus and called on his name, indeed who are as the verse reads 'faithful in their life in union with Christ Jesus.' The idea's one can derive from this 1/2 verse are tremendous, particularly from an evangelical perspective. Paul, even is his introduction to the letter is actually asking the people in Ephesus to remain faithful as they always have been to Jesus in actual continuous union with him. This indeed is an ongoing exhortation and one that is applicable to all people in Jesus Christ at all times. The exhortation to be faithful to Jesus always. Jesus Christ alone is our heavenly bride-groom and just as we are faithful to our spouse, so also we must be faithful to Jesus, our heavenly bride-groom. Truly our life is and must be spent always in union with our Lord, in constant prayer and supplication, in always thinking about our Lord and in remaining in unbroken communion with him and his presence in our life. The fragrance of Jesus must always be with us, in all that we do, all that we say and all that we think. He must be prime in our thoughts and the first thing we think about when we wake in the morning. We should reach the state when we rise at night just to be in communion with our Jesus. Jesus should be all in all for us, our thoughts at all times should be focussed on Jesus and God, the author and perfecter of our faith at all times.

May we always say only Jesus! his name be praised at all times! Glory be to him!

Amen!

1:2 The second short verse indeed carries on from the first in that Paul quite clearly exhorts the Ephesian church and believers that only God in Jesus Christ could offer them grace and peace.

1:3 Paul exhorts all the believers in Ephesus to thank God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is again is a reflection of much of Pauline writing, in that there are continuous exhortations to thank God from whom all goodness flows. God blesses us everday with life and air. He lets the wind blow so that we get relief. He cares so much for us that he protects us daily from so many evils. He is truly a good God and most important of all, He gives us each day our daily bread, both physical, material and spiritual. May God be blessed in all things in Jesus Christ. Amen!

1:3b Provided we maintain our (marital) union with Christ, God has promised to bless us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm! What a great promise, to be the divinely ordained inheritors of all God's great blessings spiritual. Can man want anything more in life on this dry earth. Let us praise God from whom all blessings flow. He is truly a good God! Oftentimes we forget this promise of God that He will bless us if we hold on to Christ. Do you yearn for spiritual satisfaction in your relationship with God, then hold onto Christ and ask God through Him. He will provide you with all the blessings you want! Do you want tongues or the gift of healing. Ask God in fasting and prayer and all will be provided as and when you're ready in God's eyes who knows each one of us so well. Praise the Lord! Glory to his name in Jesus Christ! Amen!

1:3 Jesus has given us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm. We must believe this. God will bless us only if we believe. Praise be to Him. All we need to do is to claim these blessings in faith. Praise His Holy Name. All blessings are out there. One just needs to claim them. The secrets made known to us in Jesus Christ are hidden from so many others.

1:4 Paul exclaims that even before the world was made, our sovereign Lord had already chosen us to be His alone throught our union with Jesus Christ as a result of which we would be sanctified and rendered without blemish before our God. Its just incredible to think of and we bow in awe before the grandeur and might of God that He could consider us worthy of being called and loved us sufficiently to give his only Son on the cross for us. A secret so easy to understand and yet so difficult to accept for the vast majority of people on this earth. Truly a secret revealed to babes and those people so inconsequential that they are never noticed by the top-up people of this world, but Christ came to call the humble and the downtrodden. Praise be to Him. May we love God and Jesus so must that we too might offer our bodies in loving and holy sacrifice for the betterment of his kingdom. We can only approach God through Jesus. He alone can save us and make us worthy and clean to face our maker, cleansed by the blood of the Lamb. Oh reader! if you have never made a commitment to accept Jesus, do so today. He loves you so much and is just waiting for you to make a decision. Say you love Jesus and would like to accept Him as saviour and Lord and he will come into your heart and grant your rest and peace and solace. Then you will discover the secret of a life well lived, you will discover meaning in life and will seek to live for others, instead of yourself.

1:5 God loves us so much that through Jesus, he has made us sons and inheritors of his great Kingdom that will never end, praise be to Him!

God loved Jesus so much that He made Him a living sacrifice for us and our sins. All our sins and evil were wiped away by the blood of Jesus, praise be to Him!

It was God's pleasure and purpose alone that made us His sons! Not our capabilities or gifts, but the Grace of God alone. he alone called us and entrusted us with this divine covenant and great commission. But we must be faithful. Many are the people who have fallen away from the calling. We must not be part of that group but must stand firm so that we get the crown that he has promised to those who are faithful!

1:6 All glory, honour and praise to God in Jesus Christ for the free gift of love that he made available to us in Jesus Christ. Praise Him a million times.

Jesus freely died on the cross of His own divine will that all of us sinners might be granted salvation, hope, joy and delight in Jesus and that we might hope for a better tomorrow in heaven where we shall be called with a multitude of others to praise and worship God.

1:7 The sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross, itself almost a replica of another earthly man who was willing to sacrifice His own son to God as a test of his faith fulness, was meant to set us free from all sins and evils. All our sins were forgiven by this one act of Jesus on the cross. The grace of God is so great as to enable him to give it to us in great measure, over-flowing, etc. The grace of God is available for us to take in large measure, much more than we have now and indeed as much as we want. We need to claim our measure of divine grace in full. The Lord says "Ask and you shall receive." God has given us so much grace to live in this world, so much that we never need to complain again. His promises are so vast, praise Him!

Our problem is that we often do not seem to claim the blessings God is so willing to give us. He says again as above in Mathew 7:7-8 that one must ask to receive from God in Jesus Christ. In fact Mathew 7:11 quite clearly states that our heavenly Father is just waiting to give good things to those who ask Him. So go ahead and ask and get good things from God, all asked in the name of Jesus! Praise His Holy Name!

Paul writes in 1:9-10 that God was kind and loving enough to us to make known to us nobodies the 'secret plan' he had conceived before the ages to bring to fruition through Jesus Christ on the cross. The plan which is still to be completed involves the bringing together of all known creation under heaven and earth, with Jesus Christ Himself the Son as Head.

1:11 Paul exhorts us to believe that all things are done according to the divine plan of God, decided much before the ages. Indeed Paul considers the message of God's choosing so important that he frequently repeats it in this letter, emphasizing the 'divine' choosing of each of us based on God's plan made manifest in the ages and revealed in each of us.

1:12 Paul then exhorts the Ephesians as other Church people in Asia Minor called to know God through Jesus Christ as a result of Paul's preaching and the grace and will of God to truly praise God''s glory. Praise Him indeed!

1:13 Paul states that the Holy Spirit alone is our guarantee of freedom willing to bless us exceedingly and shower us with all spiritual blessings. Receiving the Holy Spirit is our divine guarantee of freedom in Jesus Christ!

Once we believe in Jesus Christ, God puts the sign of approval on us by sending His Holy Spirit! The Holy Spirit is the guarantee of all good things that we will receive in Jesus Christ if we believe, pray and have faith and hope and trust! One thing we can be sure God gives complete freedom to those whom he loves. Let us indeed praise His glory! Complete freedom in Christ in the Holy Spirit! What more does man need!!