Trinity Not Confusing to Paul

"Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ...in whom ... ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise" - Ephesians 1:2

Paul was not confused about the Holy Trinity. He could hold the oneness of God with the diversity of persons without complaining or confusion.

Something being both one and more at the same time is seen every day in ourselves. Who do you argue with when your conscience tells you something? How do you know your body is hungry, and do you give it everything it wants?

I'm not talking about multiple personalities, but our own spirit, soul, and body ¹ interacting normally. My conscience is its own person, my mind is its own person, my body is its own person - each acting independently, yet still only one of me.

Which one rules? Well, in my imperfection, sometimes its my body and sometimes my will. I can accomplish great things when my conscience confirms what my mind envisions and my body obeys.

God acts together. There is no struggle for attention or dominance. The Father loves, plans, feels and directs. The Son acts in voluntary obedience, and the Spirit communicates God's motives, intentions, and joy.

It is God, our Father, who planned the way of Salvation. It is God, the Son, who of his own free will chose to obey, even to the cross. It is the Holy Spirit who gives us a taste of heaven and tells us God's true intentions and motives.

- fritz
^{1 - 1st Thessalonians 5:23}

God's Good Pleasure

[H]e hath chosen us ... according to the good pleasure of his will" - Ephesians 1:4-5

God's has a will and it gave him good pleasure putting you in it long before you even arrived on the scene.

It is found in Christ. Don't let discouragement cause you to quit before God's purposes are fulfilled.

- fritz
^{Related Post: "God's Kind of Ending", February 13, 2010}

Accepted!

"wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved." - Ephesians 1:6b

Words change meaning. Today, we accept a lot of things we are not pleased with, simply because we must.

This is NOT what the Bible means! The original Greek word used by the Bible actually means "highly favored", "charming", "circled with favor".

What's more, with its precise word form and endings the Greek word, here, tells us an additional nuance. Ours was not a onetime time acceptance but ongoing! We are currently living in the high favor of God by being in the one whom He loved, our savior, Jesus, the Christ.

- fritz

Assurance

"[A]fter that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption" - Ephesians 1:13b-14a

Anyone in business knows of earnest money. It is something tangible paid to the seller for assurance.

The buyer is assured full payment is coming, the seller is assured the product won't be sold to someone else.

Businessmen have used this system for years, even in bible times. Ephesian believers were told God, too, uses this method of assurance.

How could they, personally, know God's would give them salvation in the future? He would give them the Holy Spirit now.

This tells us at least two (2) things:

1) God wants us to be assured we have a place in heaven - that we won't be left behind when Jesus comes back;

2) Having the Holy Spirit is something which can be known. After all, what businessman would accept earnest money he could not know if he had or not.

- fritz

Caught, not Taught

"Christianity is a revealed religion."
- Fr. Desmond Gooneskera

My pastor brought out an important fact - faith in Christ is more successful when it is caught than when it is just taught!

Begin noticing variations of the word, "reveal" throughout the Bible. It's not just for newbies! God is only known through revelation, and always through Christ.

Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith ... mention ... you in my prayers; That ... God ... give unto you ... revelation in the knowledge of him: The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know ..." - Ephesians 1:15-18

- fritz

Abraham's Blessing - Fame

"Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house ... and I will ... make thy name great ..." - Genesis 12:1-2

Fame was one of the six-fold promises of "Abraham's Blessing" and that certainly happened for our hero. The name, Abraham, is almost synonymous with faith.

Fame is one of the promises passed down to the followers of Christ¹ - not the superstar, "name on everyone's lips", kind of fame but fame where it counts - with God.

"And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever" - Daniel 12:3

Jesus told his disciples "your names are written in heaven.".² And not just them, everyone who has accepted Jesus Christ as Lord was hand-picked by God, himself.³ That means me!

When God and all of heaven knows your name for eternity - that's real fame!

- fritz

^{1 - Blog Post - November 8th, "Abraham's Blessing Like a Football"
2 - Luke 10:20
3 - Ephesians 1:5}

Love makes its own choice

Time, like an ever rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly, forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.
- Hymn: O God, Our Help in ages Past, Isaac Watts

I don't know why my wife loves me; she probably couldn't tell you, either. It is God's gift to her and me we can enjoy but not explain.

Love is that way - it chooses its own objects of affection. Our part is to accept it, or not.

God's Love for us is like that, too. Why he would choose such an unlikely candidate, who is only here for a brief moment, is beyond my cognitive powers. Mine (and yours) is to respond with a "Yes!" or move on.

"In him we were also chosen ... to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." - Ephesians 1:11, 3:18b-19

Love doesn't tolerate, it chooses.

- fritz

Some things are just, simply beneath us!

"That..God...may give you the spirit...that ye may know...what is the exceeding greatness of his power..which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named...in this world...(and)...in that which is to come: and hath put all things under his feet..." - Parts of Ephesians 1:17-22 (KJV)

Those in Christ have no problem believing that Jesus is now above all authorities, powers, and kingdoms, both good and evil, but it is the next verse we need to understand!

God...hath quickened us together with Christ...and hath raised us up together, and hath made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus" - Ephesians 2:4-6 (KJV)

If Jesus is seated next to the Father, with all dominions under his feet, AND we are seated with him then, obviously, we would have God's ear and are also above those same dominions. We are NOT the victims of our circumstances, but the victors.

Maybe this is why Paul describes himself, in Ephesians 3:1, NOT as a prisoner of Rome (where he happened to be in chains) but, instead, a "the prisoner of Jesus Christ...". It wasn't the guard keeping him there, it was Jesus. For grins, read Acts 12:1-25. Paul happened to be in Jerusalem at the time and saw it all happen.

Never again shall I say I am doing well under the circumstances! I am doing well over those circumstances for I am seated with Christ.

- Fritz

Patrikin - Related through The Father (God): Depends on what the meaning of "is" is.