Good morning. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast. Wow! That is the gospel in a nutshell. We didn't do it – God did. If we could do it by ourselves, we would not have needed for Jesus to die for our sins. All we needed was a little faith to believe what God said. The "have been saved" is in the perfect tense. Again that means an action completed in the past with effects felt in the present. It is a done deal - we are saved. A long time ago we talked about the next verse – that we are His workmanship created for good works. The good works come as a result of being saved, not to obtain it. He Himself is our peace. In context He's talking about the Jews versus the Gentiles. But it is true in general. For through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. And so we are fellow citizens with the Saints, and are of God's household. Paul then talks about the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus being the cornerstone. We are all being fitted together into a holy temple in the Lord. At times it seems like some of the pieces don't want to go together – to be next to someone who does not believe exactly the way they do. We are being built into a dwelling of God in the Spirit. He then talks about receiving a revelation that made known to him the mystery – that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus in the Gospel. At this point in time I believe that this revelation happened when Paul got stoned by the Jews and went up into the third heaven. Several verses later Paul talks about Jesus – in whom we have boldness and confidence access through faith in Him. Father thank You that the reader can boldly come into Your presence and ask for whatever he/she needs. He/she receives whatever he/she asks for.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

When considerable time had passed and the voyage was now dangerous, since even the fast was already over, Paul began to admonish them to not continue, because he perceived that not only would there be a loss of the cargo but also of their lives.

  Good morning. When it was decided that we would sail for Italy, they proceeded to deliver Paul and some other prisoners to a centurion. Notice that “we“ returns. Luke has not been mentioned during the entire two years that Paul was at Caesarea. I guess it is safe to assume that he was in the area during this time. We will leave out the names of a bunch of places where they passed. They had sailed for a good many days and began to have trouble with the wind. This was a warning of what was about to happen. When considerable time had passed and the voyage was now dangerous, since even the fast (Day of Atonement) was already over, Paul began to admonish them to not continue, because he perceived that not only would there be a loss of the cargo but also of their lives. The centurion was more persuaded by the pilot and the captain of the ship than by what was being said by Paul. They did not want to get stuck for the winter in the port where they were located. They actually were only g...
Read more

And they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pain and their sores; and they did not repent of their deeds

  Good morning. And men repented, right? And they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pain and their sores; and they did not repent of their deeds. The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river, the Euphrates; and the water was dried up, so that the way would be prepared for the kings from the east. Previously, the 6th angel blew his trumpet and told them to release the four angels at the river Euphrates so that the army of 200 million could cross over. Back to the bowl: and I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs; for they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them together for the war of the great Day of God, the Almighty. Father continue to bring blessings upon the reader and his/her family every day  of their lives.
Read more
Good morning. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. That makes sense. Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise if in fact the dead are not raised. Is your head beginning to swim? For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. From what he says later, they must have had great concern about their friends or relatives who were Christians and had died earlier. But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits (The first sheaf of the harvest given to the Lord as a token that all of the harvest belonged to the Lord and would be dedicated to Him) of those who are asleep. Jesus was just the first to be raised from the dead, not the only one. We will see next time that Pa...
Read more