Monday
EPHESIANS 1:1-6
- Take time to be quiet, until you can focus on being in the presence of God. Read the text until you can understand what it says. If you have any initial thoughts, write them down.
- V1: How does Paul describe himself?
- Vv3-6: How does he describe our destiny as Christians?
- In these verses, God’s will takes centrestage. Why is this important in the matter of our destiny?
- How does that make you feel?
- Write down a prayer in response.
Tuesday
EPHESIANS 1:1-6
- Take time to be quiet, until you can focus on being in the presence of God. If you have any initial thoughts, write them down.
- Read the passage. Review the answers/thoughts you wrote down yesterday. Is there anything that you need to respond to?
- Review the past day. What concerns/joys/events occupy your heart?
- Write down a prayer in response.
Wednesday
EPHESIANS 1:7-14
- Take time to be quiet, until you can focus on being in the presence of God. Read the text until you can understand what it says. If you have any initial thoughts, write them down.
- In v3, Paul wrote that God has blessed us “in Christ”, meaning that through Christ we will be blessed. Vv7-14 outlines what are ours to enjoy “in Christ”. So, in Christ we have/are:
- Redemption
- Forgiveness
- Riches of God’s grace
- Knowledge of his will and purpose
- Chosen and predestined to glorify God
- the Holy Spirit
- God’s guarantee of our inheritance
- God’s possessions
Is that a lot? Is there anything you wish is also on the list? Looking over the list, what is most meaningful to you?
- Note the phrases that accompany what we have in Christ:
- Redemption through his blood
- Riches of God’s grace lavished on us
- With all wisdom and understanding he made known to us
- According to his good pleasure
What do these phrases convey to you about the blessings we have in Christ?
- How do you feel about it all? They are yours by God’s generosity.
- Write down a prayer in response.
Thursday
EPHESIANS 1:7-14
- Take time to be quiet, until you can focus on being in the presence of God. If you have any initial thoughts, write them down.
- Read the passage. Review the answers/thoughts you wrote down yesterday. Is there anything that you need to respond to?
- Review the past day. What concerns/joys/events occupy your heart?
- Write down a prayer in response.
Friday
EPHESIANS 1:15-23
- Take time to be quiet, until you can focus on being in the presence of God. Read the text until you can understand what it says. If you have any initial thoughts, write them down.
- Vv15-16: “For this reason”: Why does Paul give thanks for the Ephesian Christians when he heard of their faith and love?
- Vv17-19: Paul prays that the Ephesian Christians will have
- the Spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know;
- their spiritual eyes may be enlightened to see in order that you may know;
What does Paul want us to know? How are we to know? Why is it important for us to know? (Don’t think of it as “I tell you so you know”, but more in terms of “I know deep in my bones with complete certainty”.)
- “… know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.” Do you know this to be true of you?
- Write down a prayer in response.
Saturday
EPHESIANS 1:15-23
- Take time to be quiet, until you can focus on being in the presence of God. If you have any initial thoughts, write them down.
- Read the passage. Review the answers/thoughts you wrote down yesterday. Is there anything that you need to respond to?
- Review the past day. What concerns/joys/events occupy your heart?
- Write down a prayer in response.
Sunday
THAT YOU MAY KNOW
I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you (Ephesians 1:16-18, ESV).
When we think of wisdom, we think of an innate understanding of life and a lifestyle that is in harmony with the truth of life and our Creator. At the heart of wisdom is knowledge that has shaped the heart; an understanding that comes from living out those truths.
As a result of Jesus’ accomplishment on the cross, there is a new reality far beyond the reality at Creation. Paul prays that we will know and be enlightened about this new reality—the hope to which we have been called; knowledge that will produce further wisdom shaping our hearts and minds so we are in harmony with eternity.
Paul tells us that at the centre of it all is Christ and the more we know Christ, not only in head but also in heart, the more we will have that wisdom for life in eternity. Because in Christ God has blessed us with all. Paul does not pray that we will understand everything, or grasp the purpose of God’s will for us; surely that is incomprehensible. But he prays that we will make every effort to know Christ, not just in the head, but in the heart—in life, in experience, in prayer, in our struggle with sin, in our experience of forgiveness, in seeking his miraculous power, in praise, in pleasure, in worship, in everything—to know Christ and so taste the reality of our hope, our inheritance, our power, guaranteed to us in the Holy Spirit.
He knows that our feeble minds do not grasp the reality of it all. But he prays that the Spirit will open the eyes of our hearts to really know the glory that God is handing us in Christ.
- Take time to be quiet, until you can focus on being in the presence of God. If you have any initial thoughts, write them down.
- Review the answers/thoughts you wrote down in the past week. What conclusion can you draw from the passages of Scripture you have been considering? Is there anything that you need to respond to?
- Read the short sharing above. Does it add anything to your conclusion?
- Review the past week. What concerns/joys/events occupy your heart?
- Write down a prayer in response.