thankfulness and submission

…giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Ephesians 5:20-21

The two prevailing attitudes that are talked about, really commanded, in these two verses are part of a broader four-part string of commands that follow from being a part of a Spirit-filled church. The context is corporate worship. Church should be a mutual experience. We “address one another” in the use of psalms and music and we sing and make music in our hearts to the Lord. Those are a given experience any Sunday. That’s why we sing in church. It is what God’s people have always done.

The two other commands are equally important when Christians gather. The next command is to give thanks. The person to whom we express our gratitude is God the father. The way we do it is through prayer in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Real praise must flow from sincere gratitude. Thankfulness is a big part of our deepest worship. We pray with thanksgiving, joy, gratitude, and humble expression of our dependence upon God Who supplies all we need. Gratitude should flow from worshiping hearts. It helps our hearts submit to God.

But the real shocker of Spirit-filled worship is submission to other believers. Here it is commanded in the text. When we love and submit to God, we love and submit to one another in Christ’s church. Yes, there is submission to leadership, but Paul isn’t just writing to elders. He places this submission in a corporate setting. I should respect every brother and sister in Christ. I should submit myself to serve Jesus by serving my fellow believers. My motivation is not for my own position. My motivation is not because other Christians “deserve it“. Paul says we serve each other submissively out of reverence for Christ. I serve Jesus when I serve others. And a church gathered together doing just that is a beautiful picture of Christ’s transformative work!

In the direction of His light

Walk as children of light (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.

Ephesians 5:8b-10

There is a sense in which Christians must think very carefully about our choices and actions. We must be discerning. We must be a people who give thought to our own thoughts, who choose wisely in our options, who feel rightly in our responses, and who do righteous acts with our behaviors. This is a deliberately God-honoring holiness that flows from our redemption in Christ, our knowledge of God‘s Word, the direction of the Holy Spirit, and our own choice to believe God and do as He says by following the example of Jesus. 

This is not easy. It is however something every Christian is equipped to do. By the Word of God, prayer, the community of fellow saints, and the gospel transformation Jesus brings we all can “walk as children of light.” We can find “all that is good and right and true.” We can “discern what is pleasing to the Lord.“ We aren’t left to our own individual preference. rather, we are given specific direction depending on our role in life and stage of living. That is in fact what Paul does next in Ephesians five. He starts with the community of the church, focusing on corporate worship (Ephesians 5:15-21). He then helps Christian households find specific direction (Ephesians 5:22-6:9). We can easily discern what pleases God by living by what God shows us.

Lord,

I thank You that life is not directionless. You have revealed my salvation and my direction in Jesus. And with Your church, in my home, with my heart, and in my family I can discern what is pleasing to You. I can have all the best experiences walking as Your child in that clear light!

Amen

None Like You

There is none like you, O LORD;

you are great, and your name is great in might.

Jeremiah 10:6

There is none like You, O Lord!

No idol can stand

the power of Your hand.

The worship I bring

to You as I sing

is Yours alone.

There is none like You, O Lord!

There is none like You, my God!

You rule from Your throne

and my sin You atone.

My Savior and my Lord

I trust in Your Word

surrendering my soul.

There is none like You, my God!

There is none like You, my King!

You control life’s direction

with Your absolute perfection.

The blessings You daily give

help me to truly live

in confidence and peace.

There is none like You, my King!

There is none like You, my Savior!

I was ruined by my sin

yet Your grace still poured in

as the gospel I receive

Your Lordship I believe…

…in You I die to have new life.

There is none like You, my Savior!

There is none like You, Lord Jesus!

You are the only ruling King

Lord over all… our everything!

Bowing our knees we now confess

You alone our righteousness.

We need and want only You, Savior.

There is none like You, Lord Jesus!

confidence through Christ

…in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him.

Ephesians 3:12

Jesus provides a unique and very powerful new relationship with God. Through faith in Him, that is, by trusting in Jesus’ death and resurrection for the forgiveness of our sins and deliverance from our deserved eternal punishment, we have a brand new amazing relationship. Yes… heaven is our ultimate home, but Paul emphasizes three important daily truths that give us full lives right now.

We have boldness. This kind of teaching would be unknown in an Old Testament Jewish view of God. The predominant method to approach God that we see in the OT before Jesus came was fear… a deep respect for a holy God. And though we do still respect that holiness, we do so with a new boldness, not because we have that “right” in and of ourselves, but because we come to God through Christ, Who has forgiven our sin, Who intercedes for us, Who has prepared a place for us in His Father’s house, and Whose holiness covers us giving us freedom to be bold in coming to God the Father.

We have access. Jesus is our means to relationship with God. He is the God-Man. He is the go-between. He is the Way. He is the Door by which we enter into fellowship with God by Christ’s work for us. Jesus is the road we walk, the truth we trust, and the passport that gains us full privileges as ambassadors of the kingdom of heaven. It is a privilege… the highest privilege… to be a child of God, loved by the Father, redeemed by the Son, empowered and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, in order to represent Jesus in this world!

We have confidence. We are led by the Spirit of God. We are saved by the Son of God. We are loved by God the Father and He treats us as brothers and sisters of Christ. We are in God’s family and He longs for us to love and know Him! Why should we ever doubt our Father’s love? Why should we fear any experience in this world? We can trust that no matter where we are, what we experience, or what we need, God loves us. God provides for us. God welcomes us. Boldly, with access through Jesus, we live confidently Christian!

Deceptive / Direction

Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail.

Jeremiah 7:8

It is easy to be taken

by a lie.

When i have put my trust

in the liar.

Some I have heard.

Some I have rejected.

Some I have accepted.

Some I have turned away from.

Yet deceptive words still

can be heard.

“It will never change.”

DECEPTION

“Happiness is gone.”

DECEPTION

“Joy is in things.”

DECEPTION

“Just knuckle down, shut up, and trust yourself.”

DECEPTION

By faith I repent from

lie reception

and seek to put my trust in

The Way, The Truth, and The Life.

His Word I now hear.

His Truth I now accept.

The lies I clearly reject.

His ways show me my way

and deceptive words are known

to fail.

“Follow Me.”

DIRECTION

“Rejoice in Me.”

DIRECTION

“I will give you rest.”

DIRECTION

“I am the resurrection and the life.”

DIRECTION

amazing hope

…having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might…

Ephesians 1:18-19

I write more reflection concerning this past year. As I meditate on this prayer of Paul’s I am encouraged for the days to come. One of the wild discoveries of 2023 for me, the gracious flip side of grief and loss, is the anchoring reality of hope in Christ. There is more hope than I ever dared to imagine there ever could be! What’s more, it is a hope that is brighter than the darkness, more sustaining than my weakness, richer than my losses, more powerful than my powerlessness, and surrounds me with the saints in my loneliness!

These are more than eloquent sentiments from Paul. In my year’s experience, I’ve come to know a kind of hope I’ve always said I believed — a confident expectation in Christ — that has been substantially and tangibly real to me. I have never been much of a mystic. I’m wary of experientialism’s damage to good theology. I have always sought to play down my experience, testing it by the clear facts of scripture. Yet in this year, as overwhelming emotion has literally floored me, driven me often to my knees begging for relief, I have known the light of true hope burning into “the eyes of my heart” (that’s a weird experiential kind of phrase, isn’t it?) just as Paul has prayed here in Ephesians. I’ve seen by faith how Jesus can heal and help my deepest wounds. Trauma that I had buried over four decades in my past resurfaced in bizarre ways but with the help of biblical counsel and care was illuminated by the gospel and was changed into the glory of His story in me. And for that I am grateful well beyond my ability to properly communicate. Hope runs deep! 

Heaven is so real in my hope. God’s power to change is so significantly personal right now. The riches of Christ are a treasure more valuable and more tangible than anything else I have ever owned or known. And all of that is what God has worked in me through disappointment, pain, anger, fear, devotion to the care of another person without holding back, and the loss of what I never in my wildest dreams would have imagined I would lose. The light of hope shines like a floodlight ahead to 2024. There are more rich spiritual experiences and great joys still ahead. With confidence, I will hope!

hope in Christ

…so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.

Ephesians 1:12

As this year winds down I will inevitably reflect on the way 2023 has massively changed my experience. The one big thing though that has not changed and will never change is captured in this prayer of Paul’s: hope in Christ. In that hope I am secure. And the big lesson… the great experience of this past year has been my renewed hope in Jesus Christ. As one new and precious voice has so aptly and graciously been used by God to show me: “God… certainty amid our uncertainties.”

I have real hope. I have known a peace in the raging fury of the storm. I have felt His presence in my aloneness. I have known His mercies in my confusion, anger, doubt, and disbelief. I feel His grace pour over my sins, inabilities, paralysis, and failures. I know His comfort in my loss. I have known how God’s truth has confronted the lies I have believed about my life and this world. His strength has carried me in my weakness. His power has enabled me to go on with each day. His touch heals my hurts. His hand provides all I need. His love fills my needy heart. Yes… I have hope ahead of me and it is all the work of Jesus Christ.

In quite another kind of prayer, Paul was convinced of hope: “…I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me…” (1 Timothy 1:12). Yes, I know Whom I have believed. Yes, I am convinced He will guard all I am, all I have, safely in Him until I too enter eternal dwellings safe in Him. This hope illuminates my view back on 2023 with perspective on the painful parts of the experience and the joy of Jesus right in the center of it all! It also shines a bright light on the mystery and adventure ahead in this coming year!

Lord Jesus,

It is to the praise of Your glory that I thank You for this certainty that You have centered my heart upon for this past year. And in hope of You I face a new year of expectation and confidence in You.

Amen