It’s surprising to me how easy it is to forget what Jesus has done for me.
That sounds ridiculous, right? The perfect, holy, glorified God of the universe became a man and lived sinlessly only to die in my place and be raised from the dead so that I could live with Him forever. How on earth could I forget that? That’s like, the most profound thing to ever happen since like, ever, and to forget that would be virtually impossible.
Except it’s totally possible.
My life has been a constant roller-coaster–twisting around in every direction, while at the same time soaring up or crashing down or completely flipping upside-down–it’s been crazy. But two things that have been constant since the very beginning are that I am a sinner, feeling like the big shot in my life and being able to tell God how I’m gonna do things even though the themes of that attitude are totally false, and that in spite of that, God loves me enough to have sent His Son to nullify the crazy high payment that attitude costs me. It doesn’t matter what ridiculousness happens around me, good or bad–what will never change is that those two statements are 100% true. But my mind likes to fool me and tell me the opposite.
Paul knew the Ephesians were going through the same thing. Most of his letters were to specific people or churches who were dealing with a very particular problem that was plaguing them or the people around them and were attempts at correcting that behavior/solving that problem. Ephesians? Not so much. Ephesians isn’t a letter that addresses a specific problem. Instead, it’s a letter that attempts to avoid future problems by restating to the Ephesians what Christ has done for them through His sacrifice and the Holy Spirit and laying out for them what applying those truths to their lives would look like.
So Paul writes this letter, and he wastes absolutely zero time getting to the punch. Verse one just says who the letter is to, but verse two starts a 3-chapter-long exhortation of Jesus and what he has done for us. Three. Whole. Chapters. And the coolest part is, he tells the whole story under the context of glorifying the Father (i.e. God is the subject of the whole deal) rather than focusing on us. He constantly uses phrases like, “God…has blessed us,” “He chose us,” “He made known to us,” etc. etc. etc. It’s everywhere. God really wants us to know that this story does not focus on us, but rather, it focuses on Him and what He has done for us.
In verses 15-17 of chapter 1, Paul says this:
“For this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus
which exists among you and your love for all the saints, do not cease
giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers; that the
God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit
of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him.”
Paul says, “I know you’ve chosen to follow Jesus–I get that. And because I get that, this is what I’m praying for you: that God would give you wisdom to know what He wants and revelation to know who He is. Neither of these are possible if you don’t know Jesus. So because you do, that’s what I want in your life.” And consequently, it’s what God wants in our lives, too.
Now the coolest part is, these two ideas point back to one specific place, and it’s amazing. If God wants His children to know Him and to know what He wants in their lives, where do they need to look to find those two things?
Scripture. God loves His children enough to allow us to choose for ourselves what we will do in many areas of our lives, but if we’re not following His will in those choices, things are going to get scrappy real fast. The Gorilla Glue that fixes everything though is that His word is stuffed full with constant reminders and reiterations of what His will is for our lives: to bring glory to His name and to do so both within our hearts and outside our hearts to those around us. Colossians 3:17 says, “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.”
How can we do that without first knowing Who exactly He is? How can I speak to my roommate of a God who is sovereign if I haven’t first looked to scripture to see where He has been sovereign in my own life? How can I accurately portray His love if I first haven’t let Him love me like He wants to?
Paul wants the Lord to give the Ephesians a spirit of wisdom and revelation. God wants us to have a spirit of wisdom and revelation. Jesus supplies us with what we need to live not just physically, but spiritually as well. The Ephesians, at that time, didn’t have 100% of the scripture we have today. They just had the Old Testament. But now, scripture has come full circle. The Word of God is complete, perfect, and just waiting to show you and me who God is through Jesus and His life here among us.
We just have to let Him.
Ty Hirsch 