When Paul wrote his letter to the Ephesians (and his other letters), he was writing to a community of people. He envisioned a group of people who were working together and growing together into greater maturity in Christ. They were to do this by fulfilling the roles to which Christ had called them. Some were called to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers. The goal of all was to prepare the community for works of service among themselves until they should reach maturity. Their first goal was to build one another up into a cohesive unit who know the truth and live as the body of Christ. They were to become such a unit that they could not be swayed by outside influences. If we picture a human body, we realize that all parts grow at a certain rate. In the younger years there is a great rate of growth. In the teen years things can be a little out of balance physically as the body adjusts to greater maturity. But what if the arms decide they are not waiting for the rest of the body to grow? They want to grow now! Disaster results. Unfortunately, I've been in churches where people were growing individually but not corporately. Paul consistently warned against this. He was always pleading for people to get along and to grow in unity. I've also been a part of churches where it seemed the goal was not to build one another up, but to tear one another down. This does not help the body of Christ to grow in unity and maturity either. For Reflection: Am I a source of unity or division in my church? Am I growing together with the body of Christ or doing my own thing? What am I doing to help others grow? Let us pray. There are times, Jesus, when I have been guilty of doing my own thing. There are times when I have torn down rather than built up. Jesus, I want to fit better into your body. I want to be a better member of your body. I want to do my part - the part you have called me to do. I want to fulfill my destiny in you.
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In order to walk our path we must know who we are in Christ. Let's review who we are. We are God's children, heirs to all of his promises and heirs of the kingdom. We have the Holy Spirit on deposit within us guaranteeing our inheritance. We are blessed with every spiritual blessing. We are chosen, forgiven, holy and blameless. We are redeemed through his blood. We are God's masterpiece. We are members of Christ's body, the church, of which Christ is the head. So we are under the headship of Christ. And let's not forget we are loved. This list of who we are is just what Paul outlines in his letter to the Ephesians. He adds more in his other letters. Given who we are, our life on this earth should reflect what Jesus has done for us. Paul spends the second half of his letter to the community in Ephesus outline how we should live. Who we are in Christ is God's gift to us for believing in his Son Jesus. We believe; He gives. We do nothing to deserve it or earn it. We just receive it. Then, in gratitude, we try to act like we have it. We don't always succeed, but we keep practicing. We do our best. For reflection: Where or when did I do well today? Where or when could I have done better today? Let us pray. Jesus, as I look back over my day, I can see you in certain events, but not others. Yet I know you are always with me. Help me to look for you at the times I find the hardest. Some time back we looked at the beginning of Paul's letter to the Ephesians. In chapter 1 he tells us that the Father raised Jesus from the dead to sit at his right hand in heaven. In chapter 2 we learn that we were raised with him by being baptized into his death and resurrected with him so that we too sit in the heavens with Jesus and the Father. So we must learn to sit with him, learn who we are, and see things from his perspective before we begin to do anything else. In chapter 4 Paul tells us we must learn how to walk on this earth in a way that is worthy of our calling and gives evidence of who we are. We must walk as people who are humble, gentle and patient. We must walk in unity with one another, at peace because we are one in the spirit and one in the body of Christ. We have one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God who is Father of all. For reflection: Does my daily walk reflect who I am in Christ? Let us pray. Jesus, your walk was not easy even though you, above all people, knew who you were. I am not as confident in who I am, and not as confident in my walk. Please light my path more brightly. Paul writes that we are all heirs, all members of one body, all sharers in the promise of Christ (Ephesians 2:6). Paul knew what it was like to attack other people because of their beliefs. He also knew what it was like to be attacked because of his beliefs. In fact he was in prison for his beliefs when he wrote his letter to the church in Ephesus. One might say that unity was a burning issue for him, a matter of great consequence. So he urged unity in his churches. He knew that it is the common witness of the church that will speak to the "rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms." And that common witness cannot be achieved if we in the church don't recognize that we are all members of one body, part of one another, one flesh, with Christ as the head. We cannot put up walls against one another or attack each other without damaging the common witness we are supposed to support. Let us receive Paul's prayer on our behalf today. "For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge -- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. "Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work with us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen." (Ephesians 3:14-21) "Good fences make good neighbors" is a famous line from Robert Frost's poem "Mending Wall." In it two neighbors walk the stony fence line in the spring putting back the rocks that have fallen over the winter. One is thinking that, "Before I built a wall I’d ask to know/What I was walling in or walling out," and mentions to his neighbor that they really don't need a fence between them. But the other automatically quotes his father who always said, "Good fences make good neighbors." The latter part of Ephesians 2 concerns the breaking down of the wall between Jews and Gentiles who have become Christians. The wall has been broken down by Christ who has made the two into one in him thus bringing peace. The Christian world today is no longer broken down into Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians, but, nevertheless, we have lines or fences that divide us. Today we have political fences, cultural fences, economic fences, racial fences and theological fences. But we Christians are not a people of fences. We are a people of unity. Paul says, we are "no longer foreigners and aliens" because we are all citizens of God's Kingdom, members of God's household. We are individually members and corporately members. We are individually houses or temples of God and we are corporately one house or temple of God. There is no room for a fence. For Reflection: Jesus died for unity, reconciliation and forgiveness. What fences have I erected with other Christians? What am I walling in or walling out? What am I doing to tear down my walls and the walls in the world today? Let us pray. Father, I thank you that through the work of Jesus we are no longer foreigners and aliens, but we are fellow citizens with all of God's people and members of God's household. We are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone. I thank you that in him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple. And I thank you that in him we are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (based on Ephesians 2:19-22) We are special people in Christ. Because of God's great love for us we were brought to life in Christ even though we were dead in sin. That's quite a trade. We traded being dead in sin for being alive in Christ. God is the only one who can bring us from death to life. Just as the Father raised Jesus from the dead and set him at his right hand in heaven, He also raised us from death and seated us in the heavenly realms with Jesus (Ephesians 2:4-6). Is Paul conflating the present with the future? We are alive now and will be seated with Christ in heaven. Or does he say this because, since there is no time with God, we are simultaneously alive in Christ on earth and seated with him in heaven? If we look back to 1:3, Paul says the Father has "blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ." We are blessed in the heavenly realms, we are seated in the heavenly realms. For Reflection: If we are currently blessed and seated in the heavenly realms, what does that mean? Let us pray. Our Father, Heavenly Father, we do praise your name. You are mighty on our behalf, raising us from death to life, from earth to heaven. You keep us close to you, sitting with you. We are blessed. We are blessed. We have been considering arguments against healing in modern times. Another point brought up by people is the prayer of Jesus when he was in the Garden of Gethsemane. As recorded in Luke 22:42, Jesus prayed, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." Jesus was not asking if his Father was willing to heal him because Jesus was not sick. Jesus was asking if there was some other way to redeem the world other than his suffering and death. The answer to that prayer was "no", but the Father graciously sent an angel to strengthen his Son in his time of anguish. So the idea of "if it by thy will" (to heal) is not justified by Jesus' prayer before he died. We've looked at suffering on behalf of preaching the Gospel (which Jesus certainly did) in other posts. We will come back to it again soon when we consider Paul's "thorn in the flesh". Let's look now at the idea of "offer it up" which is another popular response to illness. Offer it up seems to mean that we are to combine our suffering with Jesus' suffering on the cross. Scripture says that Jesus died once for all. I can't imagine that he didn't get the job done or that the redemption of the world requires some suffering from me in order to be complete. Surely not. But there is a meaning for "offer it up" that is useful. What is offered to God, or sacrificed to God, is placed on the altar. It is literally "given to God" so that the person offering it no longer owns it; it now belongs to God. If we can offer our illness to God, place it on the altar and let him have it, then the sickness is no longer ours. We are free from it. Perhaps we are hesitant to give him our illnesses. Why would he want to take them anyway? Yet we believe that he takes our sins, which are much worse than our illnesses. Let us pray. Christ, my Redeemer, I give you today all the things that I have been holding on to that I don't need, don't want and can't handle. There are some arguments against healing by Christians. The first is that healing was meant for the early years of the Church in order to give weight or proof to the Gospel but it was not meant to continue and is not necessary now. (Again, I give only the briefest summary here.) My response is that healing never completely died out in the Church and the Gospel still needs to be preached with signs and wonders. People still get sick today and seek healing. God still heals today. The second argument is that it is not always God's will to heal. There are a couple of responses to that. If we don't know whether or not it is God's will to heal someone (and, as I pointed out before, Jesus healed everyone who came to him in faith asking for healing), why not pray until we know God's will and then pray in accord with what we have discerned of God's will? That way we are praying in accord with God's will. God does not "put" any sickness on us; God does not make us sick. God is all good. Jesus came that we might have life to the full, abundant life (John 10:10). Nowhere does Jesus say, "My Father gave you this sickness so that you could learn ...." Let us pray. Father, show us your will regarding healing today. Show us what it means to have life to the full, to have abundant life. Today is an excellent day to praise God with an early Christian prayer called the Te Deum. You are God: we praise you; You are the Lord: we acclaim you; You are the eternal Father; All creation worships you. To you all angels, all the powers of heaven, Cherubim and Seraphim, sing in endless praise: Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory. The glorious company of apostles praise you. The noble fellowship of prophets praise you. The white-robed army of martyrs praise you. Throughout the world the holy church acclaims you: Father, of majesty unbounded, your true and only Son, worthy of all worship, and the Holy Spirit, advocate and guide. You, Christ, are the king of glory, the eternal Son of the Father. When you became man to set us free you did not spurn the Virgin's womb. You overcame the sting of death, and opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers. You are seated at God's right hand in glory. We believe that you will come, and be our judge. Come then, Lord, and help your people, bought with the price of your own blood, and bring us with your saints to glory everlasting. |
AliceI started this website and blog on May 1, 2012. I am a Catholic who has been in ministry for many years. I first developed what I would call a close relationship with Jesus in the early 1970s. Ever since then I have been praying with people for healing and other needs. It is because I have seen so many of these prayers answered that I am so bold as to offer to pray for you individually through this website and phone line. Archives
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