jon mark

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!!!