Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged Christ, Ephesians, love, Paul, unconditional love, way of Jesus on October 28, 2010| 1 Comment »
These dimensions are what we use to understand our world. Anything outside of them is “spirit” or thoughts or feelings: wind. Scripture implies that unconditional love gives us our only true glimpse or foretaste of God. Except for Christ, who entered our dimensions to show us the the way beyond.
Ephesians 3:17b-18
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, . . .
Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged Christ, Ephesians, God, Holy Spirit, inner life, Paul, Spirit, strength, way of Jesus, weakness on October 27, 2010| 1 Comment »
I cannot really strengthen my inner being on my own. About the only thing I can do with that part of myself is work toward discovery. This place is where the Holy Spirit joins with my own personal spirit. And that kind of strength within is a gift.
Ephesians 3:16
I [Paul] pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, . . .
Because I have such a terrible tendency to start projects and peter out, I’m much more tentative about long term commitments than I used to be. I know myself that much. I have started and stopped diets, exercise programs, methodical housecleaning, vegetable gardening, interior decorating, and a score of hobbies. In most cases, I go great guns for awhile and then, eventually, the enthusiasm dwindles and I am stuck with half-done projects or worse, I am further back than I started (one step forward, two steps back).
Fortunately, my prayer life and time with God has held a certain amount of consistency that heretofore has been missing. It’s not perfect, but it’s one of the more stable uses of my time and energy. All the same, this relative success has come from a certain determination along with a greater imparting of grace from God.
I believe I will need something more now to step up to the next level, to integrate and implement the truths I have uncovered these past three years, I will need a different kind of strength and power from within. I don’t believe that more prayer or more reading (as in physical exercise) will necessarily give me the power/strength I seek or require. It would be an error on my part to think I can pull myself up to this next stage of devotion and submission to Christ.
Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged Christ, Ephesians, gentile, Jesus, love God, Love others, Messiah, mystery, Paul, promise, promises, way of Jesus on October 25, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Many people like to talk about the “promises of God,” like the various covenants God made with his chosen people from rainbows (not destroying the earth by flood after the time of Noah) to multiplication (the many children and heirs of Abraham). But then, through King David and the prophets, the ultimate promise begin to take shape.
Ephesians 3:4, 6
In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, . . . This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.
This singular promise is about relationship to God, the creator and sovereign head of the Earth. This promise is mystical and eternal. The revelation of this mystery has been a slow unfolding.
God began the process with a small group of people in Israel. Although the initial oracle was fairly simplistic (as in only ten commandments), the message grew into a rather unwieldy collection of laws and interpretations that bogged down the initial intent: Love God: Love Others. Eventually, through hardships, exiles, and even silence, another small group of people of Israel grew hungry for truth and looked for the promised solution: the Messiah who would reopen the door to God.
Hidden within the Messiah solution was a greater mystery: everyone would have now have access to God.
There is something about the idea of “everyone” that is not always palatable. If everyone can have it or do it, there is nothing special about it anymore. And what about the bad people, won’t they abuse it? And what about the ugly people or the smelly people or the people of different color or shape or ability?
It would be like a board of directors of a bank: they have the combination codes for the vault. They are the keepers of the depository and they can decide when to open the vault and when to close it. That is, until some guy comes along and says he’s the one who made the vault in the first place. He’s changing the code to make it easier to open. Sure enough, those directors start freaking out when some real low-lifes from town start opening the vault and taking what appears to be more than their fair share. These new folks are so cavalier about the door, they don’t even bother to close it sometimes. The leave the door ajar. Good grief, anyone could get in there and take everything. The directors keep closing the door and changing the access codes. But then, along comes one of the old directors, some called him Paul and some called him Saul, he starts passing out the universal code, even to people from out of town. The most amazing thing happened, instead of a run on the bank, a lot of people didn’t believe the door could be opened, so they didn’t bother to look.
The mystery is that the vault is never empty. There is always enough in the vault.
It’s the law of plenty.
Most of us think, including me, “if I give it all away, there won’t be enough for me.” [I Kings 17:7-15]
Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged Christ, Counselor, Ephesisans, Grace, Paul, renewal, salvation, sanctification on October 18, 2010| 3 Comments »
Sometimes my computer is so messed up, the only thing left to do is reboot: shut it down and restart it. And I’m thinking this was God’s plan as well. Humans needed a a restart, a clear way to reboot the system, a specific point in time to begin fresh. Christ is grace personified.
Ephesians 2:4-5
But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
Of course, a reboot will take care of the current glitches but it doesn’t erase all the old stuff. Right now, my computer is running really slow. I kept thinking it was the Internet connection or the router, but I finally had to go poking around the “C” drive to determine what else might be the cause. Since I’m not a computer expert, this investigation is always a little daunting.
As I scrolled through the “Add/Remove programs” section, I found a number of old programs I no longer use. They were just taking up space. They weren’t hurting anything, they were just memory hogs. As a Christian, there are the same kinds of things that are no longer part of my daily life. I don’t need those rule-sets for anymore. So why hang on to them? Click on remove program.
A second place I looked for memory wasters was the files themselves. Since my family sees the desktop as a “family computer,” I have discovered they leave a bunch of unnecessary files on the hard drive. Many of those were easy to dump since they weren’t mine. However, many other files represented special times in my life. But how much is too much to carry around and store? In our basement, I still have my files from graduate school. OK, that was ten years ago. Isn’t it time to take these boxes of old homework, term papers, and dated books to the landfill? Same for the old computer files.
The biggest file folder turned out to be a music folder of my daughter’s (3.5 gigabytes). I vaguely remember trying to help her salvage her I-tunes from a damaged (trojan/virus infected) laptop. In the end, we put them on the desktop for safe keeping, a holding tank. I was reminded of the times I’ve tried to help other people emotionally and taken on their stuff. I’d forgotten that I had to pass that stuff along to the God who is willing to carry it all. Click on delete … empty the wastebasket.
After I did all this deleting and emptying, I did another reboot, a refresh. Computer is running better.
Same for me. First reboot at accepting Christ was life-changing. But I still need to refresh my system along the way. Sometimes I need a technician to help me ferret out the problems, but sometimes, I just need to delete the old stuff: prayer, confession, thanksgiving.
Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged authenticity, Christ, divine power, Ephesians, eyes of the heart, glroy, God, heart, Jesus, knowing God, knowledge, Paul, power, understanding, way of Jesus, wisdom on October 14, 2010| 4 Comments »
I pray for my eyes to be opened! I pray for enlightenment (knowledge, understanding, awareness and clarity). And I pray that this awakening would not be an isolated event but a groundbreaking moment that prepares the way for a turn in my story.
Ephesians 1:18-19
I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.
Power is promised and I consider power dangerous, particularly for humans untethered by the seal of God. In some ways, I want power and control. If I said otherwise, I would be lying. I struggle with “control issues” all the time. And successful control translates into power. But that is power abused and we see that every day in our culture. The power of influence or money or position.
But here, we are told that an enlightened heart, eyes wide open, understands power in a new way. It’s an inheritance from God in Christ. It’s a focus. And as I’ve written a million times before, I’m sure there’s a paradox involved. Power is probably in letting go of one’s own “power.” It’s submitting to divine power. And of course, that power will not be the way I would expect. Would I even recognize that kind of power?
Will I recognize what I see when those spiritual eyes are opened?
When the prophets of old described all the unbelievably fantastic things they saw in their visions, they could only use their limited understanding. Am I any different?
And yet, it is my heart’s cry today. Open the eyes of my heart Lord.
Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged acceptance, body of Christ, Christ, Ephesians, epiphany, forgiveness, Grace, Holy Spirit, joy, Paul, redemption, salvation, story, trust, understanding, way of Jesus, wisdeom on October 11, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Whatever God gives, it’s given on purpose: salvation, forgiveness, healing, anointing, power, revelation, and more. All of these gifts are given according to his understanding of what is needed, when and why. Our leap of faith is accepting the timing.
Ephesians 1:7-8
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.
It’s a trust issue. Do I trust God to give me what I really need or am I always looking for God to give me what I want in the moment?
And why is it so hard for me to remember that what I already have was given in the same spirit? I was redeemed 32 years ago. I had an epiphany, a revelation of the Christ and the necessity for the veil to be taken down. I was offered a relationship with God that was unlike any other relationship I had or would ever have in this 3-D world. I was invited to partake of the universal “Body.”
I needed that moment back then. And now, along the way, oh God, help me to see the other moments. Help me to recognize the gifts you gave and to return thanks. Help me to appreciate this path instead of complaining about the conditions of the way. There are so many other ways things could have gone.
If I were totally surrendered to your wisdom and understanding, I would know true joy. I still can, right? The invitation has never been snatched away. Today is just another example of the story we are making of my life.
Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged choice, Christ, Ephesians, free will, love, Messiah, Paul, predestination, sowing and reaping, way of Jesus on October 10, 2010| Leave a Comment »
Here we go. The predestination (Calvinist) argument comes up again. Is this an exclusive club? After all, the Jews were a chosen people? Why can’t we be too? Don’t think so.
Ephesians 1:4-5b
For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted . . .
Truthfully, I think the Jews were chosen to carry the mantle of the One God and to prepare the way for the completion of those long ago promises. They were to be the roots from which the tree would grow and the Messiah would emerge. But once the Messiah completed the mission on earth, all humans had access in a way they never had before. All people could come in. Is this a type of predestination? I believe it is. But it is far more spacious than most Christians of today believe.
Christ is the way because the long-awaited Messiah was the promised way. It’s not so much about becoming a Christian as it is accepting the story, the redemption of humanity to God.
This also goes back to the sowing and reaping principle. [Galatians 6:7-8] This is part of the human condition and is a law not unlike gravity. It is the work of the Christ that can break that pattern. Without that messianic intervention, we bear the burden of our sowing alone.
I am not interested in arguing as to whether there are those who are not predestined to accept Christ. Instead, I give thanks for those who have accepted this way. And I give thanks for my own epiphany. Without it, I would be dead by now. This I know to be sure.
My personal mission is to inspire meaningful change, build faith in God and connect people with resources that make a difference in their lives. Librarian, Writer, Blogger, Follower of Christ.
Meditations from Zion 