In difficult times like this, it is easy for us to yield to sins and discouragement. Knowing that we have been blessed with God’s gift of salvation, this is a great time for us to restore our joy in The Lord. We will eventually enter the Kingdom of God. This should ignite the light and fire within us to continue to serve Him without ceasing, to spread the gospel so that more people can inherit His gift of salvation and promises too!
However, we know that a lot of people hate the gospel, mock the Lord Jesus Christ, make fun of us, and blame us for hate speech. Yet, this should not belittle our faith in God. Rather we need to let His spirit encourage us and convict us to do more for Him.
Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:
Apostle Paul has shown a great example. Despite being imprisoned, he still counted his biggest blessing to be salvation. Nothing physical in this world can beat the spiritual gift of salvation by God!
Ephesians 1:4-5 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
The word ‘predestination’ in the passage above led to the wrong doctrine of Calvinism, that God has somehow chosen who to be saved, and who to go to hell. We reject that doctrine because we believe that whether one is saved or not depends on his own free will to choose to accept or reject the gospel.
As bible believers, our understanding of verse 4 is that ‘predestination‘ comes with a condition for those who choose to believe in Him, our Lord Jesus Christ for salvation.
A lot of people especially unbelievers may find it hard to believe that God would be so ‘lenient’, when other religions talk about needing to do great works in order to go to order Heaven. Well, this is simply because of God’s grace and love towards us. God also knows that no matter how much good work we try to do, it can never be up to His standards of righteousness. Hence the only way for us to inherit His Kingdom for eternity is to have a mediator.
In God’s eyes, when we come to Christ and allow His blood to wash away our sins, we are considered more holy and pure than those unbelievers who try to prove their sinlessness their whole lives. This may sound strange, and too good to be true. Sometimes, we may even think we are not worthy of this blessing, but this gift is not given to us because we are deserving, it is because of the grace of God!
John 17:26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.
In order to spare us from His wrath, God the Father had to send His only begotten Son Lord Jesus Christ to die for us at the Cavalry, to be crucified by the Roman soldiers. Jesus shares His riches of glory with us despite how wretched and sinful we are.
Ephesians 2:4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
For all that Christ had sacrificed for us, yet how much do we love Him back? Many times we tend to yield into our flesh, we love the world and our fleshiness more than we love him. Is not that something that we should reflect upon and readjust our priorities?
Often we think we know what love means through our worldly perspective. The love we know and the love we show towards our material possession, our friends, our family is nothing compared to what God showed us! Hence for those of us bible believers who have truly experienced the love of God, it is no wonder why people may perceive us to be fanatic and weird. They just do not understand the joy, love, and peace we attain through our Christian walk. The love of God simply transcends all boundaries!
Ephesians 1:13-14 In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.
Without the Spirit of God, we are just dirt and stone. After receiving Jesus Christ and his Holy Spirit’s seal upon us, we are given values and significant meaning as a promise from God.
Ephesians 2:8-10 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
We need to constantly remember, that it is not any of our works that we should take pride in. It is His workmanship! We are His workmanship! Without God’s grace and the salvation we have secured through Lord Jesus Christ, nothing else in life matters. Nothing as big as what we have achieved in our whole life can top the few seconds of what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross.