God means only as much as His Word means to you.” If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you,” Jesus said in John 15:7, “you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.” Your love for God’s Word is the measure of your love for Him. Terry Law
Scripture
But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? He will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap.
Observation
The people of God weary Him with their words that call evil good, and ask, “Where is the God of justice?”
The Lord will send His messenger, and the Lord will come to the temple. Who can endure the day of His coming? He will be like a refiner’s fire. He will purify the priests so that they will bring their offerings to the Lord in righteousness.
The Lord will come in judgement to condemn all who do not fear the Lord.
Application
At Christmas, we celebrate the coming of the Lord Jesus into the world to bring salvation to all who trust in Him.
This reading remind us that the coming of the Lord implies judgement as much as salvation. If we need a Saviour, then that tells us we need salvation from something .
The coming of Jesus into the world removes all the grey areas and ambiguities in the law. We are on one side of the line or the other. In fact, Jesus spoke of this often, talking about sheep and goats, wheat and weeds, good fish and bad. A sorting will take place at the end, and people will be either in heaven or in Hell, in eternal Joy or eternal death.
The Christmas story is a happy event, and it calls us to worship our great and merciful God. We all need to put our lives into His hands, and commit ourselves to walking in His paths.
Prayer
Thank you Lord Jesus, for saving me from my sin. I pray that my family and friends who do not know you will turn to you and receive your salvation. Amen.
If you have been following my posts on Ephesians, you may be happy to know that I have compiled them into a book and fixed all those typos (I hope).
I studied Ephesians in order to learn more about our great God and His ways in the Church.
You can find my book on Amazon, where it is available in both paperback and Kindle versions. The Australian version is here, but it is available on all Amazon country sites. (The easiest way is to click the link then change the .au to your local ending.)
I hope the book is a blessing to you.
God demands unconditional surrender, both to the written Word and to Jesus, the living Word. Terry Law
Here is the conclusion to my study on Ephesians. I am publishing these once or twice a week, but you can read all of the available articles at our web-site, http://www.new-life.org.au
It has been hard to sit down and write my concluding thoughts on Ephesians. It is an adventure I have been pursuing for four years, and this marks the end of the journey.
I started with a belief that this short letter of Paul’s was a key to the church moving forward in the power and grace of the Holy Spirit. That belief has been vindicated, even though I feel like my own study has barely scratched the surface.
Paul uses the word mystery to describe God’s plan of salvation. A mystery is something that was previously hidden but has now been revealed. I feel that the book of Ephesians is itself a mystery which God is now unveiling.
Many of the struggles which christians face in daily life would disappear if we could only see the world, and our lives, from God’s perspective. Ephesians starts with an amazing statement: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.”
We have been blessed with every spiritual blessing. That is an epic statement. It tells us the God has lavished his love on us and that he holds nothing back from us. It also tells us that the blessings are in the heavenly realm. We have to fix our attention on heaven and not on earth to receive the blessings that God has for us.
But the blessings are not for individuals alone. We are being built into a temple for God, a household of faith. All of the divisions and conflicts of human history are done away with when we recognise that we are all one in Christ.
When we really absorb this truth about who we are in Christ, it results in a new life. We are no longer locked into the ways of sin followed by those who do not know Christ. Growing in our understanding of Christ’s forgiveness, we become imitators of God, living holy lives not sinful lives.
Marriages are transformed and family relationships renewed. Even the workplace is made new by the power of submitting ourselves to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Paul reminds us in the very last chapter that every battle is spiritual. We sometimes lose sight of this fact. We fight against people rather than the true enemies – the rulers, principalities, and cosmic powers of this dark age. God has given us weapons that will protect us in this battle. We have to take them up, praying in the Spirit at all times.
I have been surprised by the depth of understanding that the Holy Spirit has given me in this study of Ephesians. To see each verse of a dozen or so words speak to issues of faith and life has been a revelation in itself.
I hope that you, the reader of this book, are encouraged to go deeper into the Word of God. May God give you a deeper, fresh revelation of his grace to you and of your place in his eternal Kingdom. Amen
I had to cut my ride short this morning due to the flood. There is literally water everywhere. Tomorrow looks like rain again. It is turning into a very wet spring.
New Life Narrabri 