I enjoy receiving your comments. On the last post, a dear spiritual daughter asked a question in response to my note about taking longer to write because Ephesians just kept talking to me. Her question, “Is it God?”
It occurred to me that when you have been through a crises, you really do need to hear from Him that reassuring message that God loves you—from the beginning to the end, God loves you. And Ephesians is telling us that in a great way! Maybe this old message is what I need right now.
It is ironic to have this message to the Ephesians and then to have the Revelation message to Ephesus—the first church in Revelation. They had lost their first love. As we study Ephesians, we see more clearly all that “first love” means. Why had they lost it? Revelation seems to suggest that they were fighting with the Nicolations over doctrine and behavior issues. There is a powerful lesson in this for us. Often the good replaces the best. That can happen to all of us.
Some scholars suggest that Ephesians may have been for a large group of churches and not just Ephesus. It was written during Paul’s imprisonment where he was at liberty to preach his gospel. There is such a wonderful spiritual truth here! Do you every feel that you are in prison some way—emotionally, spiritually, or physically. Paul teaches us that we can still preach the gospel. That has to be a God-thing. It is a message to any of use who have come through a crises and circumstances seem to be imprisoning us.
Actually, it is a visual aid of life. We are all imprisoned in some ways. We are at liberty in the way that counts—to preach the gospel. That does not mean doctrine or behavior issues. What does Scripture say about the gospel?
In the Amplified Bible, it reads in Luke 4:18: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed Me (the Messiah) to preach the good news (the Gospel) to the poor; and receiving of sight to the blind, to send forth as delivered those who are oppressed (downtrodden, bruised, crushed, and broken down by calamity. Verse 19: To proclaim the accepted and acceptable year of the Lord (the day when salvation and the free favor of God profusely abound.)
The scripture calls the gospel “good news.” The good news is for the captive, the blind, the oppressed (downtrodden, bruised, crushed, and broken down by calamity. Wow! The good news is for all of us no matter our experience and state of being. In a spiritual sense, we are all of the above. Paul knew the good news and was still imprisoned physically—it means so much more than the physical.
Another interesting point in the Luke passage is that it starts with the good news going to the poor. The first Beatitude says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” That means those who are aware of their need. It is this awareness that creates a desire to be released from captivity and released from our blindness. Then God can “send forth AS delivered those who are oppressed, downtrodden, bruised, crushed, broken down by calamity.”
As delivered…this was the experience of the ten lepers who were healed “as they went” to the temple so they could be pronounced clean. To me, there is a powerful message in the “as delivered” idea presented in Luke.
According to our last post, we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing. If you and I were is actual prison like Paul, would be feel this way? We so often want no challenges. Even in our prisons that are emotional or spiritual or physical because something physically is not working right, can we walk around in a type of freedom and pronounce the good news. I do not know about you, but I am hearing and feeling the challenge in this message, God bless!
No comments:
Post a Comment