Ephesians 1:13-14

13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession - to the praise of His glory.
What does this mean? That I am in Christ? Who else could I be in? Where else, or what else, was I in before? I think part of Paul's answer is found in Romans 5. I mainly think this because of a sermon series by Andy Stanley where he talks about the distinction between being in Adam or in Christ. We're one or the other. We inherited the sinful condition of Adam and we're in him until something gets us out. We get put into Christ somehow. We become viewed as Christ somehow. When God looks at us he no longer sees a sinner; he sees someone who is holy and blameless. Somehow we are clothed, covered, coated over with Christ in such a way that it goes down deep. 

It's not tricking God. It's not like those terrible, fake glasses/moustache combination or a cheap masquerade; something actually happens where we get Jesus' life and he gets ours. This is Aslan's deep magic and I don't get it. I don't get what happens when someone hears the word and believes. An unspeakable transformation takes place in the instant of believing the good news: the excluded become the included; orphan becomes heir. 


But God wants us to be sure. God doesn't want us to question whether or not we're really in His son. He doesn't want his kids to be unsure of their place in the family. His precious Spirit is His way of making us sure. He is our deposit, down-payment, guarantee, pledge. His presence in our hearts is how we know that it's true. 

Even as I read these verses earlier I stuttered on the word 'truth.' Am I really sure? Am I really so uncompromising, so arrogant, as to be able to say that what I believe is universal truth? That Jesus is the truth; He is the truest thing that can ever be known. And yet and yet, I have his Spirit. I have a seal branded on my heart that leads me back to the truth even when it seems impossible to believe it. God has marked me out as His own and he promises to keep me from stumbling. He promises to keep me safe and secure until it's home time. He promises that His Spirit is enough: he is my guide, my reminder, my sustainer. And such a gift compels me to praise Him. 

Ephesians 1:11-12

11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12 in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.

I am normally pretty frightened by the concept of predestination and here Paul uses the word for the second time in just a handful of verses. I don't have a clear sense of what it means, but what strikes me here is not so much the choosing or the not choosing, the included or the excluded, not so much the picking but the purpose. To trust Jesus is to make God look good. To put our hope in Him regardless of circumstance or doubt or a difficult day is to give God glory. There is beautiful simplicity here: today we have the opportunity to show off how good our heavenly Dad is in a world that desperately needs fathering. Today, just by saying that He is where our hope is, heaven sings His praises just a little bit louder. Our limping faith is enough to cause angels to roar. 

Ephesians 1:7-10

7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding,  9 he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ,10 to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.

There is so much treasure here. I love Paul's repetition: in Him, through Him. And don't you forget it. All this is only possible in and through Jesus. He is the one who has gained us immeasurable blessing and unlimited access to the Father. And it was fitting that he should do so. It was in perfect keeping with the character of the Godhead. It fit perfectly with God's beautifully lavish nature that He should choose the way of the cross. That He should choose such an extravagant and foolish was to display His love. God was fully aware of what He was doing when He planned our redemption. He knew the cost of our reconciliation and it pleased Him to make it happen. In Christ, what was unknowable and unattainable is now revealed and approachable. The glorious mystery is that He should want to be knowable to us. He should want us as friends and not servants. Angels shudder at that truth. For surely it is madness that the best way for God to show us what He's like and the only way for us to get back to Him is by a dead man on a cross...

Ephesians 1:1-6

Rejoicers, I am trying to learn Ephesians; a little ambitious I fear but someone recently told me that it was their favourite book and that it was full of deep and precious treasures. Anyone want to join me on the journey? Today is Ephesians 1:1-6.

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To God’s holy people in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus: 2 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
much thrillingly beautiful truth already that the mind boggles. We have everything we need. God has withheld nothing from those who are in His Son. Not one blessing is held back from us. (v.3) More than that - God chose us not out of necessity or obligation but out of pure, wholehearted love. (v.4) It was a pleasure for him to bring us into his family. (v.5) He wanted to. He gives to us freely, open-handedly, longing to pour out grace and grace and grace because that is what He wills. That is the essence of who He is. We are those we are hidden in His Son. Those covered by the blood and washed blameless white. Hallelujah. Happy Tuesday.

The God who sings

The is something of a re-revelation, but it's an important one: God sings. More than that: God likes singing. He sings because He's happy. He sings as a father sings over his precious children (Zephaniah 3:17). He wraps us up in a melody of deliverance in times of trouble (Psalm 32:7) Perhaps that doesn't sound so revolutionary, but there is something so beautiful and profound about a God who delights in the world he's created and enjoys rejoicing in it: a God who takes the time to whisper a lullaby to a hurting child, who celebrates alongside those coming up out of a difficult place, who somehow guards with a tune rather than a sword. Often my view of God is so skewed: either he's mushy and fluffy like clouds or marshmellow - pleasant but rather insubstantial - or He's a tyrant waiting for his creatures to mess up and then punishing them for their misdemeanours. But that isn't how the scriptures depict him at all.

Earlier this week I was reminded of a passage in Proverbs which says this:

I was there when he set the heavens in place,
when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep,
when he established the clouds above
and fixed securely the fountains of the deep,
when he gave the sea its boundary
so the waters would not overstep his command,
and when he marked out the foundations of the earth.
Then I was constantly at his side.
I was filled with delight day after day,
rejoicing always in his presence,
rejoicing in his whole world
and delighting in mankind. (Proverbs 8:27-31)
There's several thousands pages of hot (or not) theological debate about whether or not this passage refers to Jesus or simply to Wisdom personified, but what struck me was the sense of joy and delight that fills these verses. There is something wonderfully childlike about the depiction of Wisdom watching, awestruck and giddy, as God's creation is birthed. And that giddiness is intensified when humanity is looked upon. People are pretty magical. We are peculiar and funny creatures but we are worth delighting in and our God rejoices at the world that he has made and us little people in it. God is the glad God. Not the tyrant. Nor the fluffy man in the clouds. 

And this God, the God who sings and delights and rejoices, wants us to join Him. Stan Smith, in his book Prophetic Song, talks about our role in joining in what God is doing. The created world in the bible is a world in full song, (Isaiah 44:23, Isaiah 55:12) and yet, as Smith puts it "sometimes we are the one part of creation that refuses to praise." We humans don't always like to sing songs to God. It seems a bit silly perhaps, a bit exposed, a bit awkward. I am not saying that singing is the only form of praise or the only way to worship God, but it is an important one. If we don't praise God then the rocks will do it for us. Smith makes his point by referring to Jesus' triumphal entry: Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for trying to silence the little kids crying out to him. They are the ones who have got it; they are the ones jumping up and down with excitement about the coming of this most unlikely and unexpected king; the reserved and the religious stand back. No such undignified behaviour for them. (2 Samuel 6:22) No thank you very much and do pipe down with your childish squeaks. We don't do that here. 

And yet, their refusal is followed by the great groaning of creation. Where man failed to recognise Jesus and give him praise, creation knew who He was and responded to his death. The rocks, literally, cried out: the earth shook as Jesus died (Matthew 27:51). Creation gave voice to what was happening when man failed to do so. 

I am not quite sure what any of this means. But it means that being glad is important. Recognising God is important. Acknowledging what is good amidst the mundane is important. For me, it has also meant, increasingly, that singing is important. I am not an especially musical person. I can't read music. I don't have the patience for learning an instrument. But I do like to sing. I love sitting with my guitar and strumming to God. And, bizarrely, I only seem able to strum when I'm doing just that. Young people frequently ask me if I can play this and this and this and the answer is usually no. No, I can't. I really can only sing when I worship. Peculiar. And likely laughable to many. But it is bizarrely true. For me, music comes from a place of worship; it comes from the overflow of a childish heart before a mighty God wanting to somehow find the words to say something, express something. Just as God sings when he looks at us his beloved kids, so my own heart starts to sing when I look up at my Dad. 

And so, in fear and trepidation, here's some singing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBjINbmkzAk

What Jesus didn't do

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"One of the great miracles of Jesus’ life is what He didn’t do, and not what He did do. The miracle isn’t that He said, “Lazarus, come forth” (Jn. 11:43). The miracle is that every grave didn’t empty when He spoke the words, “Come forth.” He had to say Lazarus. If He had just said, “Come forth,” all the graves would have opened. Because he is going to say that one day: every grave in the whole earth is going to open when He says, “Come forth.” "
(Mike Bickle, International House of Prayer)

No time to write much of a reflection on this - my mind is too-far stretched by its implications and I'm going to be late for church - but it is a beautifully stunning thought to think of Jesus deliberately restraining his awesome power through his humanity. Jesus could have done anything any way that he wanted to, but he chose humanity's way: he chose weakness, hunger, sickness; he chose the cross. He chose solidarity with the plight of his wayward and beloved creatures in order to woo them back. 

Kingdom Economics

Years ago, my good friend Jody once came across this saying, "All that is not given is lost" and texted it to me, saying that it reminded her of mine and Hamish's philosophy on life. I can't remember the philosopher she quoted in the text or the source, but google tells me that Mother Teresa said something very similar. As did some sage Indian proverb writers. 

I had entirely forgotten about that text until yesterday morning. I was thinking about our tendency to withhold blessing from other people. That's esoteric Christian jargon perhaps, but what I mean is our reluctance to compliment others, our unwillingness commend others for fear that we somehow might lose face in doing so. We are a competitive culture. An ambitious lot of people driven on by need to reach goals and fear that others might prevent us from doing so. It seems a very costly thing to point out that someone else is really good at something - especially if such a thing is a thing that you think you're good at or long to be good at - lest somehow you might be depleted by such an act. I hope I'm not alone in experiencing this phenomenon. It is something that I very much dislike about myself: a withholding of love, a refusal to fully celebrate because of jealousy and insecurity. 

And such a thing is entirely contrary to the Kingdom economics that Jesus lays down: all that is not given is lost. Moreover, giving is actually better for us. To give away not only our money and our time but our encouragement, our compliments, our observations of others' success, is to create a contagious culture of giving away that looks a little bit like heaven. It is better to give than to receive. All that we give is noticed by the king even if no one else takes note (Matthew 6:4). There are no losses in the kingdom. We only finally lose what we try too hard to cling on to. (Mark 8:36)

It is hard though. Something in me finds it so hard to fully love others for fear that I might be forgotten - that by pointing out what is great in them, others might fail to see anything good in me. This is, I recognise, pretty stupid. But I'm just being honest. I pray today for Jesus' view of living: to live fully is to give open handedly and with abandon. And so, give away. Give everything at every opportunity; give your spare coat (Luke 3:11), your possessions (Luke 12:33), your encouragement (Hebrews 3:13), your attention, your time, your love, your very life. Give in every way knowing that He promises to replenish what is spent (2 Corinthians 4:16). For nothing is accidentally spilled and wasted in the kingdom; it's deliberately poured out. (Philippians 2:17, 2 Timothy 4:6)