Ephesians 1:11-14

It’s about time for a Bible journal again. Actually, I’m supposed to be doing these twice a week, both of them being due on Thursday. That means I’m technically behind, because I have to do two in one day. Well, here is Ephesians 1:11-14. It’s got a lot bottled up in 4 verses. The whole INTO THROUGH BEYOND thing is just a formality for the class… I just post the journal as it is seen on the paper I turn in.

INTO
The book of Ephesians was most definitely written by the apostle Paul. The intended recipient is in question, though, as some scholars believe it might have just been written to the entire church is Asia Minor, being sent to the capital first, which just so happened to be Ephesus. This, of course, is of no consequence. Paul addresses theological doctrine and Christian living in this epistle.

THROUGH
Paul continues from the last section saying that we who have been predestined by God have a secure reward (v.11). Those who have believed in Christ are guaranteed an inheritance, because the Holy Spirit seals us in God (v.13). All this is being done according to His perfect purpose and will in order to give Him glory (vv.12, 14).

BEYOND
Paul reveals a lot of deep truths in this passage in just a few words. He answers the question of “Can we lose our salvation?” No. “Who is ultimately in control?” God. “Why does God choose to save some?” For His glory. All these can sometimes be burning questions in the Christian’s mind, and personally it is a reminder of mightily encouraging truths that have already, thankfully, been burned into my head and heart. The idea that I can lose my salvation is horrifying and would put a terrible burden on my shoulders that God never meant to put there. Secondly, God is in control. This means that I cannot be responsible for saving anyone, only He can do that. Sometimes I convince myself that people can be argued into the faith. The more I try to, the more I realize that without God I am bound to fail. Only he can change hearts, and that’s what he wants – a change of heart, not a change of mind. Thirdly that ultimately the reason he saves and does not save people is for His glory. God is the most important being in existence, and He deserves what He gives Himself. Living with this conviction and assurance radically changes my mindset, allowing me to focus on Him as supreme, rather than my pride as important.

Cleaning Up

Oh how the time flies. It's amazing how many days can just whiz past me without even realizing that I haven't posted! It's also amazing how far we can float away from Him if we aren't constantly swimming that direction. It reminds me of Pilgrim's Progress: breaks are bad! There are times of renewal, and there are the times we get lazy. They actually aren't difficult to distinguish with the tiniest bit of discernment, but our sin convinces us of a false reality, and we are lulled into a spiritual sleep. "There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death" ~ Proverbs 14:12.

I must confess that I am guilty of this. I didn't post for a while and started hearing myself say, "It's ok. You're tired. God wants you to sleep." While I'm sure it's true that God wants us to take care of ourselves and be responsible with our bodies, part of that being getting a good night's sleep, I think that this excuse is extremely deceptive, because it focuses on the effect rather than the cause. I notice that it's not God's fault that I dont get enough sleep. It's not because He requires too much time out of my day for seeking Him that I end up awake at ungodly hours of the night (or morning; pun not intended). If we look carefully we can see that this is completely the wrong attitude. The reason I'm up late is because I require too much time out of His day for entertaining myself. Subtle. Dangerous. Yet I'm confident that if we take on this attitude of humility and devote our days to Him, we will be blessed. "Blessings crown the head of the righteous" ~ Proverbs 10:6.

Actually, this whole thought process occurred to me when I got up from my desk last night. I looked at it, but didn't see it - I couldn't see it. Not through all the junk that was strewn around on it, under it, over it, and wherever else you could think of where to put something on a desk. Socks that had been kicked off were plentiful (yea, it was that sick), trash that hadn't been thrown away was everywhere, and there was an excess of unorganized paper. This all resulted in a lack of desk space on which to do my work, and added to the stressfulness of homework. I realized that in the last few days, my relationship with Christ had begun to degrade in the same direction, if not to the same point, as my desk. This was a result of lost time carried over from past days in which I decided to watch TV over addressing responsibilities such as Bible study or homework.

Note that TV isn't necessarily wrong, but what we forget is how incredibly destructive it can be when not used in a positive manner. We also forget how easily it can be used in a negative manner. It tends to eat up a lot of time, and I don't know about you, but I find that many times I get up from the couch thinking "Why did I just waste my time sitting mindlessly in front of that screen?" I don't want to condemn television. It can be used for good. For example, Bobby and friends witnessed Shark Week on TV. The difference is that he made a spiritual connection with it. It had a deeper purpose than cheap laughs or cheap thrills like most shows offer. That's what we should shoot for: the deeper meaning, God in creation, God everywhere, through everything, all the time. Anything else is settling for less, and that's not what God wants in our lives. When we consider anything more important or urgent than Christ and our relationship with Him, we break rule #1: "Jesus replied: ' "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." This is the first and greatest commandment' " ~ Matthew 22:37-38.

Anyways... I realized that my desk was dirty like my heart, and it needed cleaning. While I can clean my desk, I cannot clean my own heart: only God can do that. I also realized that if I constantly had a mindset of keeping my desk organized, I wouldn't have to face the consequences of the less than optimal working conditions and stress. This reminded me that I should constantly be doing house keeping on my heart. I let things pile up with the excuse that it's all organized up here. ::points to head:: Unfortunately, my mind has limits to this organization talent, and then there's an overwhelming amount of stuff to deal with that I don't feel I have the energy to deal with. Again, this is analagous to our struggle with sin. If I ever have to say "I've got it under control" to my sin, let that be a bright red flashing light in my mind telling me to confess pride along with everything else. "Most men will proclaim each his own goodness, But who can find a faithful man?" ~ Proverbs 20:6.

Hope you missed me.

In Him,
Evan

P.S. Time to go to sleep, praying that my 6 hours feel like 8.

Leadership (1 Cor. 11:1)

Recently I’ve been going through a book by John MacArthur on leadership. Actually, it’s called The Book on Leadership. Go figure. In this book he goes through 26 characteristics that he came up with for the ideal leader and examines Paul as he fulfils all of them. So far he’s strayed once to take a look at Nehemiah, but other than that it’s been all focused on Paul. I have much enjoyed the exciting stories, especially in the first few chapters, where MacArthur outlined Paul’s situation on the ship during his trip to Rome. Paul started out as the lowest slave on the boat, but he ended up with the influence to tell the Roman centurion, who was in charge, to cut off the lifeboat so that no one would try to escape! That’s crazy. Now, I haven’t read the entire book, but I peeked at the list of 26 characteristics and noticed that the last one was: “A leader is Christlike.” This connected perfectly with the first verse of 1 Corinthians 11. Apparently, Paul knew he was a leader. He knew where his heart was and he knew what his goal was. He was confident, but not arrogant. In verse 1 Paul says: “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.” That seems to me to be an extremely bold statement, but that’s what leaders are supposed to be. We are supposed to be examples for others to follow, and the best example to imitate is Christ.

Last year I ran for the new King’s Academy Student Council. I was very excited about having a designated position in which to lead, a place I imagined would be filled with a person who’s character everyone in the school could admire and desire. I did get accepted into the list of candidates that people could vote on, meaning that I was considered a qualified leader of respectable character. Apparently I didn’t advertise myself enough, though, and ended up being one of the 10 that had to hear the “sad” news that God had plans for us elsewhere (sad is in quotes because of this verse: Romans 8:28 – “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose”). Looking back at it I realize that perhaps it would have just added to the stress of my already overly busy summer. Perhaps God was saving me from that, or perhaps God was freeing up my time so that I could be open to serve with something else later this year. Either way, reading John MacArthur’s book reminded me of something: effective leadership doesn’t spawn from an impressive title. I can still be just as much a leader at school (or anywhere) without having the title of “The King’s Academy Student Body President.”

I was also reminded of this when I had the privilege of meeting the new head wrestling coach for this year’s wrestling team. I had an excellent first impression: a humble, yet confident God-fearing man who put being a champion into perspective and had high soaring goals for our small team this year. He reminded Stephen Thalin and me that this year we are seniors and therefore have certain responsibilities to lead the team, whether it’s sweeping off the mats or making sure the freshman aren’t messing around. He was inspiring, encouraging, and God-fearing. He always brought Him into the picture and I just thought it was so great – exactly the kind of coach I could ever have wanted. He is a good leader, and hopefully his example will encourage me to be a good leader too.

We can be leaders anywhere, from any position. It doesn’t take an impressive title or job description for us to be godly leaders. If we follow Christ’s example, we can be leaders for anyone anywhere, revealing to people the glory of God.

Ephesians 1:1-10

I must admit I was wrong when I said that I was doing three verses at a time on Ephesians. I check back now and the first section allotted is 10 verses long, and the rest of them are like that, having anywhere between 3 and 12 verses assigned to journal on. I’m going to just assume that these are grouped logically, based on more factors than simply how many verses there are in the section compared to the others. That behind us, I’m going to say something about the format that Mr. Starke requested we use for this project. It has three parts. The first part is labeled INTO. In this section we just explain who is writing what and to whom. The second part is labeled THROUGH. In this section we simply summarize what Paul has said in our own words. I’m not sure whether he wants this from Paul’s perspective or from ours, so I’m going to write it from mine, because it’s supposed to be a personal journal. The last part is called BEYOND. This is the fun part where I get to apply it to my life and give specific examples of how the passage affects me personally. So in we go!

INTO
The book of Ephesians was most definitely written by the apostle Paul. The intended recipient is in question, though, as some scholars believe it might have just been written to the entire church is Asia Minor, being sent to the capital first, which just so happened to be Ephesus. This, of course, is of no consequence. Paul addresses theological doctrine and the Christian life in this epistle.

THROUGH
Paul begins his letters the same way he normally does: by introducing himself (v.1) and his audience (v.1) and giving them a greeting (v.2). The first thing he does after introducing his letter is praise God for blessing us (v.3). He then goes on to cite predestination as a specific example of how he has blessed us (v.4), explaining what this blessing entails (vv.4-5), and telling us why God chose to bless us. (vv.5-6). He switches gears a little bit coming into the next paragraph, speaking about our present salvation rather than salvation as foreordained. Throughout the next 3 verses he emphasizes the role of God in saving people: “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And He made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ” (vv.7-9). The last verse explains what God’s ultimate goal is, saying that at the end of times God wants to unite everything in heaven or on earth that is in Christ.

BEYOND
It seems like many people have a problem with the idea of predestination. However, I’m not sure how any Bible-believing Christian can read that passage and think otherwise! It seems pretty clear that God predestined us to be holy; we didn’t choose that path on our own. This is a great comfort to me, actually. It may have been painful to make the big leap from a path toward indulgence in sin when I was seven to a true desire to seek Christ and serve Him after a missions trip I went on after 9th grade, but since that was his decision to form the relationship, it cannot be my decision to sever it however much I decide I hate it (God forbid) at whatever low point in my life. I do not have to be afraid of seeking the truth wherever it leads me, because on top of the fact that the truth has nothing to hide, nothing new I discover can destroy my relationship with Christ (Rom. 8:38-39). He will always be my Father; there’s no way out of it, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The First Day of School

Today was the first day of school, and a good day it was indeed. I was able to read my Bible for a few moments this morning and remind myself what I was committed to - serving the Lord and being uncompromising. I must admit that before that I felt tired and grumpy, but after reading that I felt somewhat refreshed, and by the time I got in the car I felt completely ready to go to school. I find the first day of class to be somewhat amusing. It seems like I make a big deal in my head about every rule, later on forgetting they even exist. We read the Bible in a lot of my classes, and not just Senior Seminar (essentially our Bible class), so that was exciting! The great thing about Monday's is that I get that class first thing in the morning! That's sweetness.

Well, there's so much I could say about the first day of school. I'm getting homework already, some classes are really laid back like Spanish 5, where I'm confident we will have a great time, and some are a little less so like Physics, taught by Dr. Parker. I still really want to learn a lot in Spanish class, though. It'll be the last chance I have before we go to Mexico for the last time :(. What I wanted to just mention was our little homework assignments for Senior Seminar. We are going through the book of Ephesians this year (semester, actually, but we have only 1 semester, so I wont be doing any other books of the Bible for school this year), and we are supposed to do a journal about twice a week on about 3 or 4 verses for each journal! So... I was like, haha I totally do that already! (Except with a chapter of 1 Corinthians) So I thought, once I'm done with those, I might as well post them for all of you to benefit from! The great part is that it's only going to be about three verses, so it should be a lot shorter and more enjoyable for all you people who probably don't have all the time in the world! Just wanted to announce that pretty much. We also have memory verse(s) every two weeks I think, so I'll probably be writing on those.

I thought of a passage that came to mind while writing this. I was reminded of it because as soon as I arrived at school and sat in the midst of all my classmates:

James 1:22-25 - "But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does."

Another awesome encouragement for us to strive to make the faith real in our hearts and lives. It even says we'll be blessed, and if anyone knows anything about the blessings of God, they knows it's worth any hardship we might face! Well, I must go now, I've got quite a few more responsibilities now that I'm back in school!