My thoughts for the Itty Bitty Bible Study group on Facebook. (join if you’d like to get these in fb!)
In the IBBS Ephesians Introduction, I shared my thoughts on Ephesians 1:1-2.
In my research, I have found some that say that verses 3-14 are all one long sentence.
It is commonly known that the verses, the chapters, and maybe even some gramatical markings were not necessarily in the original texts. The KJV has it split up with colons and semi-colons.
ESV has added periods.
I’m not sure if God is concerned how we break it down, as long as we choose to read his word, to apply our hearts to wisdom! I think Psalm 90:12 applies here!
Ephesians 1:
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,
4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and blameless before him.
In love
5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ,
according to the purpose of his will,
6 to the praise of his glorious grace,
with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.
I really do not want to deal with the predestination and election theology. That is WAAAAAY above my pay grade.
There are many teachers out there pro and con predestination and election – and one can simply do a google to find whichever point of view feels right. I even hate saying it like that. But, this issue can become a very volatile and divisive issue, and I do not believe that is the point Paul is trying to promote here.
I want to focus on how God the Father positioned us to be sons!(and daughters)
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In Christ, God has given us every spiritual blessing in heaven.
4 In Christ, he chose us before the world was made. He chose us in love to be his holy people—people who could stand before him without any fault.
5 And before the world was made, God decided to make us his own children through Jesus Christ. This was what God wanted, and it pleased him to do it.
6 And this brings praise to God because of his wonderful grace. God gave that grace to us freely. He gave us that grace in Christ, the one he loves.
Praise be to God the father of our Lord Jesus Christ
That’s a good start for a confession of faith.
In Christ.
That is our profession of salvation. That is our position.
It is from that position, that we should be everything else in our walk, in our lives.
We are seated in the heavenlies with him.(Ephesians 2:6)
We are joint heirs with him.(Romans 8:17)
In this verse we find out that we are blessed in him.
Every spiritual blessing in heaven.
There is a song that I love called I Can Only Imagine.
There is nothing we can compare to being blessed with every spiritual blessing in heaven!
It will be exceedingly abundantly above all we can ask or think! (Ephesians 3:20)
Right now we can only see through a glass Darkly.(1 Corinthians 13:12)
In Christ, he chose us before the world was made.
He chose us in love to be his holy people—people who could stand before him without any fault.
In Christ is the first blessing. Because it’s by faith by grace through faith and that not of ourselves that we are saved. Which we will see in Ephesians 2:8-9.
Here is the tricky part, He chose us before the world was made.
This gets into the predestination and election.
The thing is, do I believe the Bible means what the Bible says?
Yes I do.
I believe God the Father chose each one of us
- before He created the world,
- before Adam and Eve fell,
- before he sent his son,
- before my mother and father met,
- before I was conceived,
- before I was born,
- God chose me!
The tricky question, which will come up in this book, is, if God chose people from before creation does that mean He chose those to go to hell?
When we stand before God on the judgement day, we will not be judged on whether God chose us or not, we will be judged on whether we chose God or not.
I’ve been doing a Bible study group at church about God being sovereign. In that group the teacher is talking about God’s perfect will and his permissive will.
Pastor Jimmy Knott, from First Baptist Orlando is doing a study on God’s Will.
He’s talked about God’s Determined or Decreed Will and God’s Desired or Permissive will.
here’s some of my notes:
Many years ago in a Thompson Chain reference Bible, there was illustration that shows the two sides of God’s will. It is from the Bible analysis of Romans.
God’s ways are above my ability to comprehend.
The main thing for me is to know the God has had a plan for me from before the foundation of the world!
He chose us in love …
Why did he choose me? Because he loved me.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever whosoever whosoever.
God chose us in love. This brings us back to Genesis 1.
Why did God create? Love.
God chose us before the foundations of the world because of love. Therefore he had to create a world for us in which we could live.
God created the heavens and the Earth and everything that dwells therein, because he loves.
Even simpler, God is love.
He chose us in love to be his holy people—people who could stand before him without any fault.
Chose us to be His holy people.
Holy does not mean perfect, holy means set apart on to him.
Second part of this says “people who could stand before him without any fault.”
That is why Jesus came. In 1st John 1 we are told the followers of Christ do not sin but that if we say we have no sin we lie and that if and when we sin we have an advocate with the Father which is Jesus Christ and that we can pray and ask forgiveness and he will washes clean of our sins. 1 John 2
We stand before God the Father without any faults because God the son, Jesus Christ, took our sins on the cross, and paid the price, so that we are seen as if we had never sinned.
Justified equals just as if I’d never sinned.
5 And before the world was made, God decided to make us his own children through Jesus Christ. This was what God wanted, and it pleased him to do it.
Why did God do this?
Because he wanted to, and it pleased him to do so.
God decided to make us his own children.
That is the whole purpose for creation, for God to have children.
- God wasn’t surprised that Eve listened to the serpent, that Adam listened to Eve, and they both sinned.
- God wasn’t surprised that Cain killed Abel.
- God wasn’t surprised that Moses killed an Egyptian.
- God wasn’t surprised that Ruth left with Naomi and met up with Boaz and had a child.
- God wasn’t surprised that it was the Seventh Son of Jesse that chose to worship God and therefore was chosen for the king of Israel.
- God wasn’t surprised when Herod sent out the soldiers to kill babies around the time Christ was born.
- God wasn’t surprised when the people of Jesus’s day kept trying to kill him before his time.
- God wasn’t surprised when Judas betrayed Christ with a kiss.
- God wasn’t surprised when Jesus hung on the cross to pay the price
- God wasn’t surprised that Jesus rose from the dead because that was God’s plan from before creation!
The reason that God created from the beginning was so that you and I could become His children through Jesus Christ’s death, burial and Resurrection.
The plan was that the Father would draw us to Him!John 6:44
Just in case we weren’t able to handle it(which he knew we would not be) God gave us the gift of faith so that we could believe in the grace of the cross. Ephesians 2:8-9
He gave us the gift of repentance so that we could turn away from our Wicked Ways and humble ourselves and seek his face. 2 Tim 2:25
Everything that we have comes from God’s hand.
6 And this brings praise to God because of his wonderful grace. God gave that grace to us freely. He gave us that grace in Christ, the one he loves.
This is preparing us for ephesians 2:8-9.
And it gives us our appropriate response for the grace that God has given us that we should praise God from whom all blessings flow!
- He gave us the grace in Christ, the one he loves.
- He gave us the grace to Believe In Christ, and
- He gave us the grace to become children of God, through Christ, whom he loves.
But this whole plan was constructed and conceived because HE loves, because HE loves us, from before the foundations of the world.
My word of the day meditation on February 15th 2017 talks about my choices and HIS plans!
Jeremiah 1:5 talks about being known before we were conceived
Jeremiah 29:11-13 talks about the plans HE has for us.
Psalm 139 talks about being fearfully and wonderfully made
Here is the foundation piece, we love because he first loved us. In addition we are because he first loved us. We will be because he first loved us. 1 John 4:19
Our past, our present, and our future are all enmeshed in His love for us.
There is nothing about God that isn’t done because of his love.
Because of His great love, we are not destroyed!Lamentations 3:22
When we look at First Corinthians 13 describing What Love Is, it really is a description of God.
Love is patient, love is kind, love is not envious, does not rejoice in wrongdoing.
We can go through the names of God and see His love in every name even those that are considered harsh or cruel.
In the King James Version – Ephesians 1:6 says:
To the praise of the glory of HIS grace, where in HE hath made us acceptable in the Beloved.
Acceptable in the Beloved.
Why would I want to be anywhere else?
That’s my thoughts for today….I hope this blessed you!
Thanks for joining me in this journey,
In His hands and under His wings,
~Christi
Ps 63:7 Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings.
“The Lord does not give me rules, but He makes His standard very clear.
If my relationship to Him is that of love, I will do what He says without hesitation.
If I hesitate, it is because I love someone I have placed in competition with Him, namely, myself.” – from My Utmost for His highest
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[…] that there is something here about predestination and election – which I have spoken of in Itty Bitty Bible Study – Ephesians 1:3-6. I love what pastor JD Greer said in his study on Ephesians – understand that we are chosen, […]
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