OK, Here's Another One

Ephesians 1 (The Message)

1-2. I, Paul, am under God's plan as an apostle, a special agent of Christ Jesus, writing to you faithful believers in Ephesus. I greet you with the grace and peace poured into our lives by God our Father and our Master, Jesus Christ.


The God of Glory


3-6. How blessed is God! And what a blessing he is! He's the Father of our Master, Jesus Christ, and takes us to the high places of blessing in him. Long before he laid down earth's foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son.



7-10. Because of the sacrifice of the Messiah, his blood poured out on the altar of the Cross, we're a free people—free of penalties and punishments chalked up by all our misdeeds. And not just barely free, either. Abundantly free! He thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need, letting us in on the plans he took such delight in making. He set it all out before us in Christ, a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth.



















11-12. It's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone.



13-14. It's in Christ that you, once you heard the truth and believed it (this Message of your salvation), found yourselves home free—signed, sealed, and delivered by the Holy Spirit. This signet from God is the first installment on what's coming, a reminder that we'll get everything God has planned for us, a praising and glorious life.



15-19. That's why, when I heard of the solid trust you have in the Master Jesus and your outpouring of love to all the followers of Jesus, I couldn't stop thanking God for you—every time I prayed, I'd think of you and give thanks. But I do more than thank. I ask—ask the God of our Master, Jesus Christ, the God of glory—to make you intelligent and discerning in knowing him personally, your eyes focused and clear, so that you can see exactly what it is he is calling you to do, grasp the immensity of this glorious way of life he has for his followers, oh, the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust him—endless energy, boundless strength!



20-23. All this energy issues from Christ: God raised him from death and set him on a throne in deep heaven, in charge of running the universe, everything from galaxies to governments, no name and no power exempt from his rule. And not just for the time being, but forever. He is in charge of it all, has the final word on everything. At the center of all this, Christ rules the church. The church, you see, is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church. The church is Christ's body, in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence.

Nothing Can Separate Us

Romans 8 - The Message

The Solution Is Life on God's Terms

1-2. With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ's being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.



3-4. God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn't deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that. The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn't deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.



5-8. Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them — living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn't pleased at being ignored.



9-11. But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won't know what we're talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God's terms. It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he'll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ's!



12-14. So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!



15-17. This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him!



18-21. That's why I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.



22-25. All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.



26-28. Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.



29-30. God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.



31-39. So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn't hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn't gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God's chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ's love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture: They kill us in cold blood because they hate you. We're sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.



None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I'm absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.





SELAH

Thursday Thoughts

Hey bloggers,

Thanks for the discussion on the pics, and on the word that came forth last night (currently 26 comments)...HAPPY BOSS'S DAY, and God bless Joe, the Plumber...

Hey bloggers,

I was in meetings all day yesterday (still in N’Awlins), but I was reading your comments on my Blackberry as they came in throughout the day, and I must say…very cool stuff! Seriously, the verbal tapestry that you all weave here together every day is something special to behold.

Rev. Kutts read several of your reviews of the GPF to the ACLC Convocation today, and everyone was very moved by them. I think we just added a lot of new people to the blog as a result.

The meetings have been very interesting and enlightening. I’m flying back today, so I’ll tell you about them tonight ITB.

My apologies for the difficulty that many of you are having with getting e-mail to me, but the staff tells me that the current security settings are necessary. We’ve had lots of problems in cyber-hell (cyber-gehenna?).

You may already know this, but the purpose for the word verifications on the blog is to keep out bulk spam. But your interpretations of them are funny and sometimes profound…even prophetic.

Anyway, I’ll see you tonight.

Stay strong today.

Greetings From the Big Easy

Hey bloggers,

I'm in New Orleans for an ACLC (American Clergy Leadership Conference) Convocation, and I'll be speaking to the attendees about the GPF @ CITN this afternoon. Many of the people here have been reading the blog, and are very impressed with, and excited about, your comments concerning this past Tuesday night (and with the blog, in general). One gentleman from Miami has even taken your comments about the GPF, and has printed them out and put them into book form...so some of you are now technically authors!

One thing...on this computer in the hotel's business center, most of the posted pictures are x'd out...I hope it's just that way on this computer, and not on the blog itself. Someone let me know one way or the other (if it's that way on the blog, I'll have to wait until I get back home to fix it).

It's going to be a busy day here, but I'll try to write something later.

Peace!

Sunday's Blessing

Today, on this beautiful Sunday in October, I speak a blessing over you...over every blogger and blurker...over all of CITN and cyber-CITN...over every believer, and even over every non-believer...over every man, woman, boy and girl...even over every Democrat and Republican...I speak into your life with hope for the future, because God has said, "I know the plans I have for you"...regardless of what is happening in the material world, you have the promise that God will not fail you...

All of the promises of God are YES and AMEN, and the same God who, in the ancient world, put a rainbow in the cloud to show Noah that the nightmare/storm was truly over, will watch over His word to perform it for you in the here and now...

I speak a blessing over your dreams, as the colors of the rainbow remind you of all the possibilities available to you...


I speak joy to you...joy unspeakable, and full of glory...Kingdom joy that confirms your righteousness and your peace...joy in the Holy Ghost...the joy of the Lord which is your strength...

His word will not return to Him void, and His promises are now simply statements of fact...a revelation of what is already yours...an unveiling of the mysteries of God...an understanding and realization of what you already possess...

You are blessed, in spite of what is happening in the economy...and you will continue to be blessed, regardless of who ends up in the White House...no matter what you hear, the world - God's amazing creation - is still a beautiful place...

Keep looking up...there are signs in the heavens, and the heavens are delcaring the glory of God...

Put on the garment of praise instead of the spirit of heaviness...His burden is easy, and His yoke is light...the sun is shining, and the rainbow is clear and brilliant...hope is everywhere, and the atmosphere is charged with faith...all things are possible...

Arise and shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you!