jon mark music

so you guessed it, i’m still in ephesians and moving along slowly. paul is writing to the church at ephesis and today i am going to look at yet another prayer that he offers. i finished up chapter 3 and verses 14-21 are packed with some good stuff!!!

14 When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, 15 the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. 16 I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. 17 Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. 18 And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. 19 May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. 20 Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. 21 Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen. (NLT)

paul goes into how he is praying for them…again for them to be growing spiritually and not for them to be comfortable and all that sugar coated crap…for them to have understanding of God’s love…there’s an easy task right? (i don’t know that i can ever understand loving me to the point that He would sacrifice His only Son, or at least not until i meet Him face to face.) paul is praying for some really deep stuff.  

and paul hits on this in verse 19…though it is too great to understand fully…i’m feeling a little better when i get to that statement. but the second half of verse 19 is where it’s at for me…then you will be made complete…after i experience the love of Christ…then i will be made complete…

wait, wait…this means that i am already complete? i’ve already experienced the love of Christ in my life. i’ve already experienced His saving grace…so why is it that i continue to search for things in life that will make me, me…or more prepared…or make me feel better about myself…or make more people like me…well, because though i’ve experienced it, i haven’t fully understood it yet.

according to paul i’m complete, right now, because i have experienced the love of Christ in my life. and not only am i complete…now all glory to God, who is able, through His mighty power at work withing me, to accomplish infinitely more than i might ask or think…but God can use me to accomplish His will…to do more than i can even fathom!!!

then…now?!?! it’s time for me to realize that i am complete and God is able to do amazing things through me…it’s time for me to stop thinking about me and the mistakes i’ve made…it’s time for me to stop getting in the way and let God show what His grace and His love are capable of doing…

 then…now

what about you? are you complete? is then…now?

yesterday i asked God to help me be sensative to His leading and to help me see people and situations through His eyes. this isn’t something new really, but i actually tried to put it to the test. you know, if i felt God was telling me to do something…i needed to do it, no matter what. doesn’t sound so harmful, but i tend to think of this as being set up to fail or get some mud on my face…not so fun.

in doing so, i ended up e-mailing a complete stranger in indiana and offering him one of my cd’s and then talking to a man that sat behind me at a basketball game…he ends up being a sophmore computer science major at BGSU and he’s from tanzania, in east africa. there wasn’t a whole lot of substance to the conversation, just me asking about his life and what he is doing in ohio. i shook his hand and asked his name at the end of the game…i think he said “ima” but i can’t say for sure. (his usual language is swahili, making his english a little more difficult to understand)

so why? why did God lead me to do these things? i don’t have any idea…maybe to show that it’s not so hard after all…or that i’m not out anything by being obedient…or that there is this joy you get from being obedient, even when it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense??? then i get to my devos this morning…

so i’m continuing to study in the book of ephesians, slowly of course…remember i’m not too swift about anything. today i started in chapter 2, verse 11. i continued to the end of the chapter, but had to keep returning to verse 11…mainly the first sentence of the verse. check out these 8 verses…

11 Don’t forget that you Gentiles used to be outsiders. You were called “uncircumcised heathens” by the Jews, who were proud of their circumcision, even though it affected only their bodies and not their hearts. 12 In those days you were living apart from Christ. You were excluded from citizenship among the people of Israel, and you did not know the covenant promises God had made to them. You lived in this world without God and without hope. 13 But now you have been united with Christ Jesus. Once you were far away from God, but now you have been brought near to him through the blood of Christ. 14 For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us. 15 He did this by ending the system of law with its commandments and regulations. He made peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in himself one new people from the two groups. 16 Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death. 17 He brought this Good News of peace to you Gentiles who were far away from him, and peace to the Jews who were near. 18 Now all of us can come to the Father through the same Holy Spirit because of what Christ has done for us.

i think what God wanted to teach me was wrapped up in verse 11…and then verse 18. there have been times in my life that i was an outsider…outside of God’s family and other times when i have been outside of His will. 

i need to not forget about that…not forget about the fact that there are others all around me that are outsiders, or maybe fell like outsiders. i need to show them the love God has shown me! even if it’s a simple conversation that never even makes its way to talking about God. i need to not forget that there is only one reason that i am no longer an outsider…because of what Christ has done…

don’t forget…that we need Christ…that others need Him too…

don’t forget!!!

our church started a new series…uncommon sense…and as a part of this series the pastors will be doing a daily podcast that you can listen to, dealing with a proverb and how we can apply it. this is a great way to take advantage of technology as a part of the church, and to use it for God’s glory. check it out!

 www.iheardsomethingcooltoday.com

so i looked at the IMPACT that the church of ephesis had on paul. today i want to focus on what he had to say following this…

paul goes on to tell how he would pray for those there in the church and he lists the things he would pray for. this is a great tool for us to use today as we pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ…because we all do that right?

eph. 1:16 …I pray for you constantly, 17 asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God. 18 I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance. 19 I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. (NLT)

he starts out by saying, “i pray for you constantly.” and he’s asking for wisdom and insight…so they can know God better…for them to understand this hope of heaven and all that entails…for them to understand God’s power. he is praying for them to grow in their faith, to grow closer to God, to understand who they are in Him.

so the first challenge…to pray constantly. i’m sure that we all have a handle on that one right? it’s a struggle for me just to remember the requests that are shared with me. i have to write them down! doing that helps me to remember, but i still don’t do it constantly. GREAT challenge there!

then he shares his concern for them to grow spiritually. not for them to be safe or comfortable or to get everything they ever desired in life…not that i can’t pray for the requests that are given to me…but i need to pray for more than that. i need to pray that God would continue to work in the lives of my brothers and sisters in Christ. i need to pray for them to be challenged, stretched, molded by God.

my challenge is to see how you can apply this…

for me, it takes me back to a series on prayer that i taught a couple months back. it was based on Jesus’ prayer in john 17.

as a part of that series i put together a prayer card with the days of the week…then i was able to write down the names of those in my prayer group, next to the days of the week. then i can remember to pray for them spiritually and for their requests. it’s been a great tool for me personally and has helped me grow in my conversational ability with my Father. it has helped me in the area of caring for my brothers in Christ.

who is it that you can be praying for, for God to challenge, stretch, and mold? if you can’t think of anyone, please pray that for me!!!

so this week i started to read and study ahead for a series that we are going to start in a few weeks on ephesians. this is for our “journey community” that we meet in on sunday nights , GPS. and i obviously started with the first chapter and made it through the first 14 verses rather smoothly. there are a few awesome things in there about  some amazing blessings that we have through Christ and what a privilege it is to be called a child of God.

but then i hit verse 15 and 16. i was stopped dead in my tracks!!! not because i haven’t read this before or because i haven’t ever heard a sermon preached on it…but it was talking about something that really ties in to what God has been talking to me about… living out the life of Christ. not just performing the task of going to a building once a week referred to as a church and also doing your duty of paying a tithe (or something close enough) to the church. according to paul these people were LIVING out the life of Christ! check this out…

eph. 1:15-16

Ever since I first heard of your strong faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for God’s people everywhere, I have not stopped thanking God for you. I pray for you constantly. (NLT)

did you catch it in there? paul starts with ever since i first heard…not saw or experienced, not what he had gone and checked out…he had just heard. and what exactly did he hear about …their big buildings? amazing programs? great music? gifted pastor? NO!!! he heard about their faith and their love for their brothers and sisters in Christ.

and what was the outcome of what paul had heard?  he prayed for them…constantly. the lives of these people at the church of ephesis were so different from that of the world, that the word got out. it got to paul in some way, in some other place. we don’t know if that was while he was in prison or while he was on one of his missionary journeys, but it got to paul. and the word didn’t just get out, it had a HUGE impact on paul and on his ministry. the impact was so big that paul couldn’t get it out of his mind. he was constantly thanking God for them and offering up prayers for them. now that’s what i call IMPACT!!!

my first reaction was to think that maybe i’m just a worthless loser because i don’t exactly have this type of an impact on people. i mean, i have this cd that a few hundred people have a this blog that a handful of people read…but i can’t say that my faith and my love for my brothers and sisters in Christ have changed anyone’s life like this changed paul. but then i, being the competitive perfectionist type person that i am, decided that this would just have to be a goal to strive for. not to be like the people there in ephesis, but to be more like Christ.

that’s what they were doing isn’t it. the people there had faith in God the Father…Christ definitely had that, He trusted His Father enough to be crucified on a cross. and that cross also showed how much He loved us!!! so that is the challenge that i have found in those two short verses…

i’ve got some more to come from the remaining verses of that first chapter…so if you are reading this, check out ephesians 1 and then you can be a step ahead.

in the mean time let’s live lives that have an IMPACT!!!