Paul is caught up in declaring the ultimate purposes of God in and with His creation in the letter to the Ephesians. This message, unknown by the masses but revealed to those who fear Him, culminates in the glory and centrality of Jesus, God's Son of Salvation. It is a cosmic proclamation of God's glad tidings for a global world.
Those whom He has known intimately and loved before the foundation of the world are called and adopted as sons of the Living God, transformed by spiritual graces available to us as we live in mysterious union with His Son, the Redeemer King, being transformed into His image in order to magnify Him as Head of all things. Joined together with all believers we become a multi-faceted, multi-coloured glory, reflecting God's wisdom to all heavenly beings, caught up into the Godhead and becoming partakers of the Divine Nature.
You don't believe it? Read it for yourself. Our faith may be childlike but our calling is profound, and requires great discipline of our minds and hearts to perceive God's truth. That, too, is our calling and we are at all times strengthened, enlightened and encouraged by both the Son and the Holy Spirit, as Paul and John make clear.
So let us then ' study and be eager to become approved as workmen with no cause to be ashamed, correctly handling the Word of Truth'. Our lives depend on it.
Sunday 28 September 2014
Friday 19 September 2014
GOD'S SYMPHONIES IN HIS WORLD
We are God's Stradivarius violins, His carefully crafted chosen ones. When the Master touches our lives we are transformed into heavenly beings, reflecting His glory as we play out His symphonies to the world around us, bringing Him great delight. The more we recognise His handiwork in and around us, the more those symphonies resonate with His majesty and beauty.
Let us play on with ever increasing joy till He comes to take us home.
Proverbs 8 vs 30, 31
2 Corinthians 3 vs 18
Zephaniah 3 vs 16 to 20
2 Peter 1
Let us play on with ever increasing joy till He comes to take us home.
Proverbs 8 vs 30, 31
2 Corinthians 3 vs 18
Zephaniah 3 vs 16 to 20
2 Peter 1
Thursday 11 September 2014
DWELLING IN GOD'S SECRET PLACE
How amazing. God rewards us for taking refuge in Him!
It is the guarantee that we will remain secure and safe as we rest in His the shadow of His wings. When we declare Him to be our refuge He will ensure our deliverance, not ashamed to be called our God.
We become spectators of His anger poured out on the godless, those who hate Him and would murder Him all over again if they could. Those who hate His people, seeking to bring them into public disgrace and imprison them. They must be silenced at all cost.
This is the work of Satan, the father of lies and a murderer from the beginning, having no grain of truth in him.
How this perspective encourages us and sustains us as we live on in this world, interpreting events both global and local. It makes sense of our pilgrimage and so daily renews our trust and confidence in our Redeemer, increasing our love for Him as we trace His love for us minute by minute. Only when we constantly die to all human refuge does He open our eyes to see Him in all of life.
Psalm 91 and Hebrews 11
It is the guarantee that we will remain secure and safe as we rest in His the shadow of His wings. When we declare Him to be our refuge He will ensure our deliverance, not ashamed to be called our God.
We become spectators of His anger poured out on the godless, those who hate Him and would murder Him all over again if they could. Those who hate His people, seeking to bring them into public disgrace and imprison them. They must be silenced at all cost.
This is the work of Satan, the father of lies and a murderer from the beginning, having no grain of truth in him.
How this perspective encourages us and sustains us as we live on in this world, interpreting events both global and local. It makes sense of our pilgrimage and so daily renews our trust and confidence in our Redeemer, increasing our love for Him as we trace His love for us minute by minute. Only when we constantly die to all human refuge does He open our eyes to see Him in all of life.
Psalm 91 and Hebrews 11
Tuesday 9 September 2014
THE GAME OF LIFE
George MacDonald reminded me this morning that we are to be God's playfellows, sipping nourishment from the 'beauty which all around us lies', then each to his own calling, radiating truth clothed in something of that beauty.
'Being good' is the greatest stimulus to the creation of imagination and true intellect.
'Being good' is the greatest stimulus to the creation of imagination and true intellect.
Sunday 7 September 2014
THE SUPREME GOD
Amazing to look on nature in all its local glory of fields freshly ploughed, myriads of trees, flowers of the ditches, a hovering butterfly and an open sky and think that I am at peace with the God who made it all and in whom I live and move and have my being.
Paul caught the attention of the Athenians by proclaiming this God. It is He who determines the lives of rulers and nations so that they may seek Him. He calls on men to turn their minds to think His thoughts and live His ways.
One day His Son made Man, now risen from the dead and appointed Judge Supreme, will hold all to account for how they regarded Him, the only Mediator between God and man.
Paul caught the attention of the Athenians by proclaiming this God. It is He who determines the lives of rulers and nations so that they may seek Him. He calls on men to turn their minds to think His thoughts and live His ways.
One day His Son made Man, now risen from the dead and appointed Judge Supreme, will hold all to account for how they regarded Him, the only Mediator between God and man.
Friday 5 September 2014
GRUMPY
Why should I have toothache as well as 'endure the hostility of sinners'? I can't even sleep properly. I guess it's all part of my daily 'bread and water'. The bread of adversity and the water of affliction, the diet of God's true children.
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