January 25: Ephesians 1:3-10

Key Verse: Ephesians 1:6
to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

Devotion:
The first thing the writer acknowledges in this letter to the Ephesians is that God has chosen us to be His people and has given us the freedom of joining Him in heaven because of his grace shown to us through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He made this all known to us because of His great love toward us, a love which covered our sins and continues to envelop each one of us.

It was not down to the timing of people whether they be kings and queens or the very poorest in society; the timing was God’s to make according to His infinite wisdom which has been displayed to us time and time again. Even though we have so many stories in our bibles which show us God’s perfect timing according to His perfect wisdom, we still try to impose our own lack of wisdom on God!

God has done this all so we can be together in unity in heaven. This means leaving our ways and our wants behind to be as one people under God. How long will it take before people all round the world give in to allow God to show us His power and strength? Will it be like the Assyrian army in yesterdays passage where thousands had to die before they believed the truth; will we too wait until it is too late?

God wants us to see and believe the truth whilst we are alive and living in this world, not to suddenly be faced with the truth after it is too late! God wants us all to be together in heaven – yet we still choose our differing and divergent ways.

My prayer for today is we bring Christ’s light to the people around us; that we allow many more people to see the truth which is in Christ Jesus before it is too late for them. We cannot be like the zealous Jew Saul was before his conversion, but we can be like the renewed Paul who was willing to show thousands the gospel story so they had the chance to make their own informed decisions!

Points to Ponder:
How did you get to know Jesus?

Will you tell someone today how you got to know Christ?