Eph 1:15- What does being a son/daughter of the King look like?

In Ephesians 1:15, Paul says "Ever since I first heard of your strong faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for God's people everywhere, I have not stopped thanking God for you"

Simple enough verse? Absolutely

Read it before? For me, I read over it at least 30 times before.

Anything profound stick out? Not at first glance.

Good thing Jesus likes to reveal more of His character and purpose to us daily.

When beginning to study Ephesians tonight, I learned that long sentences were typical in Paul's writing.

So what?

I learned that the interwoven nature of these sentences reflects the interconnectedness of their ideas.

Paul isn't just spouting off revelation after revelation. We need to read through this text knowing that each thing he is says is very connected to the next thought.

Verses 15-23 is a single complex sentence in Greek.

Let's revisit verse 15

"Ever since I heard of your strong faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for God's people everywhere, I have not stopped thanking God for you"

Paul links faith in Jesus Christ with love for God's people. Personal faith in Christ brings salvation, and salvation is expressed by a life of LOVE.

Faith in what Jesus did on the cross and in the resurrection,brings us into a relationship with the Father. In this relationship, we are now called sons and daughters instead of slaves. Children look like their Father. We are called to look like our Father.

What does our Father look like? L O V E

Do you look like your Father to the world around you?

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*Stay tuned for more from Ephesians...there is so much meat in here, it's AWESOME!

Blogging? Morgan? SAY WHAT

So Jesus has really been speaking in depth to me about a couple of things...

I believe He wants to reveal who He is not only to a ministry, a church, or a city but that there would be a dramatic revelation of the Father's heart to EVERYONE.

The magnitude of what Jesus did on the cross is never fully realized by many of us. Instead, we opt to discuss, skim over, and maybe debate about our religion, the cross, and Jesus without fully allowing our hearts and minds to be available for the Father to speak to us.

Here's the bottom line. For us to even begin to understand/comprehend what Jesus did, we have to be available and open. Do you really allow Jesus to fully have your heart, soul, AND mind?

Romans 12:2 says "Do not conform to the patter of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is- his good, pleasing and perfect will."

Personally, I have more of a difficult time giving my mind to God. I have, for much of my life, thought like the world. I would take everything the Lord told me, and then tweak it a bit to make sure it lined up with my circumstances/experiences so that I wasn't too uncomfortable. This is clearly not OK. Being "uncomfortable" is part of the Christian life. We are dual-citizens (citizens of the Kingdom of God, and earth) living in on earth.

As Vineyard Columbus pastor, Rich Nathan, wrote "We live in time, but we belong to eternity. We are deeply engaged in this world, doing all we can to love our neighbor and work for justice while we acknowledge that we don’t ultimately belong to this world. According to Augustine, people of faith hold dual citizenships; we are resident aliens"


Therefore, as we live on this earth, there are going to be times where we are uncomfortable. Where we don't look like the world around us. 


There are going to be times we need a comforter. The Holy Spirit.  Recently, the Lord is challenging my thinking and now as I fully surrender ALL of me to Him, I'm seeing things through a different lense. In times that I hear the Lord say something, or what I read something in the Bible which doesn't align with my personal experiences, I resolve to invite the Holy Spirit in. So far, this journey has been one of much revelation- constantly challenging and encouraging me to step out of my box and allowing me(and my mind) to enter into heavenly places. I would love to share some things He has been showing me.

Basically, this is the basic underlying purpose of me writing a blog. To be really honest,I'll have come back to this later and expand on why blogging was the answer, but I have some revelation the Lord *just* gave me and I'm far more concerned about sharing His words than my own in this introductory post, so here goes!