For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus,
and your love for all God’s people,
I have not stopped giving thanks for you,
remembering you in my prayers.
Ephesians 1:15-16
If you want to read an encouraging chapter in the Bible, read Ephesians chapter one.
Here Paul thanks God for all His spiritual blessings and they are many. Some things he mentions are; our adoption as sons and daughters of Christ. Our being predestined according to God’s pleasure and will as Christians. As Christian’s God has chosen and handpicked us in Jesus Christ. God makes us holy and blameless because Christ died for us. It is not anything we do but everything Christ Jesus has done on the cross of Christ.
Paul mentions God’s glorious grace freely lavished on Christians. What an abundance of spiritual blessing we have indeed!
In Christ we have redemption, made new, and forgiven of our sins.
Lastly (in this chapter anyway) God has made known to us the mystery of His will as it pertains to the end times. There will be unity to all things in heaven and on earth.
We live for the praise of God’s glory.
When we believe in Jesus Christ, He marks us in Him, with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, to live within us. The Holy Spirit is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of our souls.
After listing the spiritual riches we have as believers in Christ, and Paul is addressing the Ephesian Church along with us, He then gives thanks for their faith.
Paul gives thanks to God for their faith, but not just that. He gives thanks to God for the love the Ephesians have for all God’s people! He says he has not stopped giving thanks to God for them and that he remembers them in his prayers.
How beautiful is that? I find it very endearing to hear these words from the Apostle Paul to the Church in Ephesus.
As you read Ephesians 1, verses 17-23, it is one of the most astoundingly beautiful prayers in the Bible.
Here it is…
17 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father,
may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation,
so that you may know him better.
18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened
in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you,
the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people,
19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe.
That power is the same as the mighty strength
20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead
and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms,
21 far above all rule and authority, power and dominion,
and every name that is invoked,
not only in the present age but also in the one to come.
22 And God placed all things under his feet
and appointed him to be head over everything for the church,
23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.
May these spiritual riches in Christ be yours today.
Also, may it be that as Christians, we pray for each other in love and kind concern, as Paul did for his fellow believers in the Church of the Ephesians?
For me personally, there have been friends in Christ that are across the miles. The Holy Spirit bonds us through Jesus Christ. We have that in common. Though time and distance keep us apart, we are bound forever in the heart, through Christ Jesus.
I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.
In Christ’s Love,
Yours truly,
Liz