Every day I begin my day in the word, and then, as I am the only one at the church for several hours, I begin my day at the church on my knees. From there, I seem to see things more clearly. I tend to have peace throughout the day that I can’t understand. It is a really humbling experience. What gets me there, though, isn’t the prayer itself. It is realizing that I am allowed at all to go before the throne of the God of the Universe. I am a speck of dust living on a speck of dust in this large and vast cosmos. I am not even a big mark on the timeline of eternity, I am a vapor, a flower quickly fading. This God I seek, though, loves me, and this love is often more than I can bear.
This is a love I cannot earn, and surely don’t deserve. I have gone against my design, and rebelled against my Designer. I am worthy of death. And yet, for me, this speck of dust, that same God sent His Son to die. That God delights in me, warts and all. That God, by the blood of His Son, through His Holy Spirit that He has placed inside me, and by His word wants to shape and transform me and conform me in to His image. That God who created hundreds of billions of galaxies, planets and stars beyond count, who spoke, and all things came to be, and the One who is behind the fine tuning of all creation loves me. I can’t fathom just how vast and wide and deep this love is, and it humbles me. What is really wonderful news, though, is that this love is for all who will call on Jesus’ name. It is an invitation open to all, but the cost was High for God and is high, indeed for us. It cost God His Son, and it costs us our lives: we must submit everything to Him and do everything His way. Yet in that love, in that submission there is freedom unlike anything else. This love is for you too.
Ephesians 3
For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles— assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly. When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given me by the working of his power. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
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