JEAN'S BIBLE STUDY COM

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1-3 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

Eph 2,1-22

(29j) Gift of God >> God is on our side >> God identifies with us >> He is our advocate

Eph 2,1-10

(193g) Die to self (Process of substitution) >> Turn from sin to God >> Repent >> God grants repentance

(207j) Salvation >> The salvation of God >> Salvation verses >> The generosity of God’s salvation >> Salvation is the gift of God

Eph 2,1-7

(38f) Judgment >> Jesus defeated death >> God judged the world, the flesh and the devil

Eph 2,1-5

(26a) Sin >> Consequences of sin >> Death >> Dead to God through sin – Sinners are spiritually dead to God; they cannot hear the Holy Spirit speaking to them but are separated from His grace and mercy and from His promise of eternal life. Hollywood is popping out horror movies by the score, because people are dead in sin, and they walk in unbelief like zombies, for the darkness has blinded their eyes, and like vampires, any amount of light makes them react hysterically. In contrast, those who are alive in Christ love God and hate sin. 

KJV    NAS

Eph 2,1-3

(16b) Sin >> Man’s nature is instinctively evil >> Man is an enemy of God -- These verses go with verse 12. The true condition of humanity as seen through the eyes of Scripture is that the world is by nature at enmity with God. Paul depicts people as dead in their sin, plotting on course with the rest of society, following the general consensus in a way that seems right to the natural mind. This is civilized humanity throughout the eons. The world is dead, implying that it is insensitive to the voice and truth of the Holy Spirit, and consequently separate from the life of God. The body may be alive, but those who don't have this gift of the Holy Spirit are spiritually dead. The world does not know God, who is first and foremost a Spirit, hence it cannot be spiritually alive. 

(22g) Sin >> Lust (craving pleasure) >> Fleshly mind

(57d) Paradox >> Opposites >> Friend of the world is an enemy of God – Everyone who believes in the general consensus of the world does not believe in God, for the two are opposites by nature. There is a spirit that is contrary to God working in the world to guarantee man’s rejection of God. 

(160e) Works of the devil >> Essential characteristics >> Satan’s attitude determines our direction >> Led by the devil into sin – The deception that is in the world though lust (2Pet 1-4) has such a hold on mankind that it makes believing in the Scriptures very difficult for some people if not impossible. Only the Holy Spirit can cut through the darkness of man’s heart to shine the truth on his soul, which becomes his new core belief that he finds more convincing than anything he has known prior to his divine enlightenment. God starts by revealing the core motives and spirits behind the great deception, delivering us from false reasonings and our own human tendencies to believe a lie. Man is content in his own world, though there is suffering caused by sin, men murdering men, women and children, discord, unhappiness and unfulfilled desire. In all these things man is still content to retain his fleshly worldview, even after the sacrifice of the Son of God. We are locked into this worldview, and without God we cannot think or feel our way out of it. There is no thinking our way out of this box. God is the only one who can deliver us from our humanistic belief system that is reinforced by demonic powers of wickedness in high places.

(164f) Works of the devil >> Manifestations of the devil >> The world system >> Satan’s system of authority >> He is the prince of the power of the air – There are forces in the world today on TV, broadcasting the same message to millions of people at the same time. They appear to mean no harm, yet do we think for one minute that Satan has not harnessed this method of communication? He is the Prince of the Power of the Air, the master of mass communication. The television set has fallen right into his lap, and he has been using if from day one. We turn on the TV and see all the people smiling, telling us how we should behave, and it all sounds like they have our best interest at heart, but don’t count on it. God placed His Holy Spirit in us, who is leading us away from the worldly perspectives toward the thoughts of God, which are diametrically opposed in concept, in thought, and in values and actions. In every conceivable way God is the opposite of the world, why? Satan rules the world. The antichrist may not have appeared yet, so He may not rule the world in a physical way, but he rules the world spiritually, in a subtle way, in the mind of humanity, in how they think and what they believe, which determines how they live and what they do, and how they treat their fellow man. Most people don’t have the foggiest idea what the Bible means when it talks about the "world." There are many kings and presidents, but according to the Bible, Satan is the ruler of the world. This verse suggests that Satan’s ability to govern the world is dependent on the disobedience (unbelief) of the vast majority of humanity. So, basically man’s unbelief acts like a dark cloud that continually hangs over the world to create the mood (atmosphere) of evil, while Satan orchestrates the entire process. None of this could be possible if the core of man’s nature were not instinctively evil, giving man an affinity for satanic control. It is programmed into man’s flesh from the fall of Adam to be more attracted to evil than to God. Man’s unregenerate nature has nothing to do with God, but matches the devil. Man’s nature is demonic. So it would seem that we have an unfixable situation, and by ourselves it is just that, but God has solved our problem in Christ.

(166j) Works of the devil >> Manifestations of the devil >> >> The carnal mind cannot discern between good and evil >> The carnal mind agrees with the devil – Jm 3-15 echoes these sentiments about the world and its wisdom, saying that it is “earthly, natural, demonic.” Like James, Paul also associated the world with the devil in the first verses of this chapter. That which is earthly and secular is according to the law of the jungle. However, man’s nature is different from the nature of animals. When he tries to follow these same rules of nature, he finds that nature has rejected him, since God kicked Adam from the Garden, and now we are stuck building civilizations that are distinct from nature, and with that God prophesied our kingdoms would destroy us. So it seems that man has nowhere to go, except to God. By ourselves we naturally think the thoughts of demons. This too corresponds with secularism, because Satan wants us to believe there is nothing else to life than what our five senses can detect. Satan wants mankind to believe there is no such thing as a spirit in the world; he doesn’t want them believing in God; he doesn’t even want them believing in his own existence, since he too is a spirit. Secularism denies any and all forms of spiritualism. Although there are all kinds of evidence to support God’s existence, the creation itself is proof of that, still secularism persists and interprets all things through the lens of nature. When whole societies accept these things as a viable worldview, it makes the lie of secularism that much more convincing. 

(180i) Works of the devil >> Practicing witchcraft >> Rebelling against God’s narrow way >> Rebelling against the will of God – Rebellion began in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve when Satan fooled them into eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil; they entered into the same transgression as Lucifer, which was simple rebellion. The circumstances and details of Satan’s rebellion and man’s rebellion are different, but they are both rebellion. Even if we try to be good, we were born into the family of Satan by default and were by nature children of Satan. There is no way out of it except through faith in the shed blood of Christ that God used to purchase the Church from Satan, which is the only acceptable covenant that God is willing to make with mankind. Our acceptance of this blood covenant proves that we want peace with God, and we want to be His children and do His will, and we want to be pleasing to Him. Conversely, if we reject his blood sacrifice, it just proves that we are still in rebellion. We don’t want to be at enmity with God. He saved us from our sins as we dedicated our lives to the process of sanctification, setting us apart from our sins and from the world that we inherited.

(183g) Works of the devil >> The origin of lawlessness >> Spirit of Error (Anti-Christ / Anti-Semitism) >> Spirit of the broad road >> Spirit of the world – Those who are dead in their transgressions are following what Jesus called the broad road that leads to destruction. Through his jealous rage this malevolent spirit is leading mankind off a cliff. His many cohorts are working with him to make sure that in their futile groping mankind will never find God. People who are walking on this broad road to destruction do not need to do anything to be candidates of God’s wrath, except to walk on this path, for the broad road itself represents the very essence of unbelief. 

(184b) Works of the devil >> The origin of lawlessness >> Darkness >> Hiding behind your own imagination >> Hiding behind a false authority

(185e) Works of the devil >> The origin of lawlessness >> Mystery of lawlessness >> The mystery of sin

(202b) Denying Christ >> Man chooses his own destiny apart from God >> Running from God >> Running to your sinful nature >> Run from God by running to the world

(240h) Kingdom of God >> Opposition toward the Kingdom of God >> Hindering the kingdom >> Natural disadvantage >> Natural disadvantage of the world -- These verses go with verses 11&12

(25j) Dead In Sin (Key verse)

Eph 2-3

(19h) Sin >> Having the mental disease of the world >> Worldly influence on the mind

(230g) Kingdom of God >> God’s kingdom is a living organism >> Partaking of God’s judgment

KJV    NAS  /  Navigation Bar

4&5 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),

Eph 2,4-10

(33l) Gift of God >> Believers are special to God >> He has given us all things

(116i) Thy kingdom come >> Faith >> Working the grace of God >> Working God’s kindness – There is a difference between grace and mercy, though they are often interchanged. Mercy speaks of God’s unmerited favor, whereas grace refers to his unmerited power. God was rich in mercy to send His Son in the first place, and then His grace saved us by the power of God who raised Him from the dead. When we believe in Jesus, the indwelling Holy Spirit deposited God’s mercy in us, and through that Spirit He empowers us by His grace to do his will. We never see grace and mercy working apart, in that grace is always for the purpose of mercy, and mercy is always for the purpose of grace. The only reason God had mercy on us in the first place was that we were born in sin through no fault of our own, making us victims of sin. We didn’t ask for this, but now we have a choice; we can live by a different set of rules apart from those of our sinful nature, and by a new source of power by the grace of God.

(238a) Kingdom of God >> Pursuing the kingdom >> The kingdom is transferred to the Church >> Born again >> Born of the Spirit by the will of God >> Born again by the will of the Father

Eph 2,4-9

(31e) Gift of God >> Grace >> Salvation >> God’s mercy overrules man’s sin – Paul is talking about the work of the cross, and our faith in Him when he speaks of the unfathomable love that God has for mankind, by evidence of sending His Son to be hanged on a cross while we were yet sinners. He did it knowing many of us would betray our sinful nature and cleave to the purpose and calling of God after such a demonstration of love came for our benefit.

Eph 2,4-7

(34b) Gift of God >> God’s generosity >> Believer owns everything >> Trinity belongs to us >> Father belongs to us

(124a) Thy kingdom come >> Manifestations of faith >> Acts of love >> Love takes from the rich and gives to the poor >> Love takes sacrifice – There is something intrinsically wrong with claiming to know why God loves us, as though we could give Him a reason to love us; but the fact is, God loved us while we were yet sinners (Rom 5-8). We did not give God a reason to love us before He sent His Son; He sent Him through love, and He loves us based on a vision, and His vision in this life is that we should fulfill His purpose and calling by walking on the trail that He has prepared for our feet. In the life to come He also has a vision of us accomplishing great and wonderful things. He plans to endow us with grace for the purpose of showing mercy to His creation, just as He has shown mercy to us. So God loves us through a vision; He doesn’t love us because of us, but because of Himself; nevertheless, people think God loves them because of some quality they possess. There are few things lovable about us in relation to each other, let alone in relation to God. Some might say it is not very loving for a god to love us only if we change, yet consider all the changes we have already undergone: first as a fetus, then as an infant, then a toddler, an adolescent, and finally an adult. Consider also the many changes we have undergone as an adult; every decade we become a different person, so we have changed many times, and God is asking us to change once more this time for Him, so we can fit the shoes of the person that He has envisioned of us. It is one thing to mix His Spirit with our spirit to make a new person in Christ, but it is another thing to personally change into the image that God has of us, so the inward resembles the outward, like the parable of the woman who put leaven in the center of a lump of dough and discovered it the next day leavened from the inside-out.

(224b) Kingdom of God >> Illustrating the kingdom >> Description of heaven >> Describing the kingdom after he makes all things new >> Description of the ascension

(226e) Kingdom of God >> Illustrating the kingdom >> Rewards of the Kingdom of Heaven >> Reserved in heaven >> Our life is reserved for us in heaven – The blessings will never end in the demonstration of His love for those who exercise their faith in Him for His cause and for our benefit. A life of faith is a life fulfilled. Man was made for God. If a man does not have God dwelling in him, he is incapable of being satisfied, because his heart is empty. If they don’t have God, then they don’t have hope of eternal life, and without hope beyond our own mortality, their life will end someday, and that is a nagging fear in the back of every person’s mind who does not know God. For those who belong to God, that question has been answered. Their happiness and fulfilled satisfaction of life will never end. That alone brings joy.

(249h) Priorities >> God’ s preeminence >> Wealth >> True perception of wealth >> The infinite and eternal wealth of God >> Being rich in Jesus – This is our hope of eternal life, to enjoy it with our creator who loves us and gave His life for us in order that He might redeem a people for His own possession who are zealous for good works. It will take all eternity before we finally come to the full realization of God’s love for us. It will take that long just for God to reveal it to us. There is so much of God and so much of His love. What He offers us is abundant life that will last for all eternity. 

(254b) Trinity >> Holy Spirit’s relationship between Father and Son >> Jesus is the life of the Spirit >> We live because He is life >> We live because we are in Jesus

Eph 2-4,5

(38g) Judgment >> Jesus defeated death >> Resurrection of freedom

KJV    NAS  /  Navigation Bar

6-9 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Eph 2-6,7

(67e) Authority >> Jesus at the right hand of the father >> We are with Him – God has selected from the world to be His worshippers. He will raise us up and seat us in heavenly places on His throne, and give us all power and authority over heaven and earth with Christ. In that sense, we will seem like little gods to those whom God creates after us. The reason we are here in this life is to learn that we are not gods. There was a day when we were not saved and on our way to hell. We will always remember our lives in the flesh squirming in our own filth, how weak and foolish we were, “disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another” (Tit 3-3). Then God saved us. Now we are in Christ as Christ is in the Father, and we are one with Him. The level of authority that He will give us will be something that will take an eternity to fully grasp.

(70ja) Authority >> Believer’s authority >> We have been given authority over all creation >> We are the children of God >> We have a place on His throne

(104i) Thy kingdom come >> Pure in heart shall see God >> Shall see Jesus >> Being in the presence of Jesus

(127d) Thy kingdom come >> Manifestations of faith >> Kindness >> God is kind

(214f) Sovereignty >> God controls time >> God’s timing >> Dispensation of God’s revelations >> Dispensation of Christ – The joys of heaven are inexpressible the things we will come to know and enjoy throughout the ages. There will be ages in heaven. An age implies the end of something and the beginning of another; there will be ends and beginnings throughout eternity. This has happened since the beginning of time and it will continue throughout eternity. God creates ages, regardless of what man has does; these ages occur, and they have all lasted 2000 years apiece. There was an age between Adam and Noah’s flood, an age between Abraham and Christ, and of course the age of grace in which we are now living. If they occurred among sinners and godless heathen who try to thwart everything God does, how much more will the ages of God continue among the saints throughout eternity?

(224l) Kingdom of God >> Illustrating the kingdom >> Description of heaven >> The holy of holies >> The throne room of heaven – God will not withhold anything from us, giving place to us even on His throne; there is no greater honor than that. This is beyond imagination, yet in the beginning He said, “Let us make man in our image” (Genesis 1-26), so it is only fitting that He would raise us up and seat us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Eph 2-6), because that is what it means to be made in His likeness. God’s throne represents righteousness and judgment, which are two of His main attributes, and therefore we must receive them to truly be in His image. When we think of the beginning in Genesis chapters 1-3, the account of creation, how it speaks of God creating man, by the end of chapter three it seems that God had finished, but not even close. God came to Adam in the garden in the cool of the day and talked with Him, and at that point in the creation of man, God had not offered His throne to him. God knew about sin, but Adam didn’t, so again this was Adam not yet fully made in His image. He was made in the image of God in some ways, but when Adam took that fruit, he came a little closer to His image, because now he understood sin, which was something God understood without experiencing it. When Jesus died for us, He became a little more like man, experiencing our sin without personally committing it, feeling its effect and suffering under its power to separate man from God. So God and man have converged, man becoming a little more like God, and God becoming a little more like man.

(237i) Kingdom of God >> Pursuing the kingdom >> Transferring the kingdom >> The Church is transferred to the kingdom >> The ascension >> Believers’ spiritual ascension – It says that God was willing to deliver us from our sins and give us the life of God as a gift of His grace and also to raise us up with Him and seat us with Him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. We are currently seated with Christ in the Spirit. Just as the sons of the devil serve him in his presence, so the sons and daughters of God serve Christ in His presence, and since Christ dwells in heaven, so we serve Him there with Him in the spirit. Although our bodies remain in the flesh on earth, God is in heaven and on earth at the same time. Just as we are with Him spiritually, so one day God will raise us bodily and seat us in His heavenly kingdom and we will worship Him there in the most literal sense. The Holy Spirit has come from heaven to us, and He lives in our hearts. Since the Holy Spirit is the very essence of heaven, it hardly matters that we are in this world, still dressed in sinful flesh, full of weakness, toil and suffering. We are just as much interwoven into Christ as we will be in heaven; there will be a much greater realization of it in heaven standing in His presence, but for now we know in part. The veil of our flesh is keeping us from a greater understanding of Him, and so the calling of every Christian is to push away the veil to see better into the spiritual realm, and we do that by dying to self. He is in us and we are in Him, interwoven into each other; this concept describes the spiritual ascension. Although we may not have literally ascended to heaven, heaven has descended to us, and the net result is the same––we are in His presence. The Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him that Paul prayed in chapter one depicts this ascension, and he gives us the details of it continuing to the end of that chapter and into this one through verse ten, the crescendo being Eph 2-6, “[He] raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” Paul speaks in past tense as it has already happened; we are already there! That is our position with Christ, and the realization of it is the spiritual ascension.

(244a) Kingdom of God >> The eternal kingdom >> There shall be no end to his increase >> The Church shall reign with Christ forever

Eph 2-7

(4g) Responsibility >> Advocate God’s cause >> He who is faithful in little is also faithful in much – This verse goes with verse 10.

Eph 2,8-10

(77k) Thy kingdom come >> Being Humble Before God >> Having an attitude of humility

(84g) Thy kingdom come >> Words of your mouth >> Boasting in men is not needed

(92a) Thy kingdom come >> The narrow way >> Trail of good works >> The good works that God has prepared for us – Who am I? Only God can answer this. If we think we know who we are without God, we’re wrong. We cannot think ourselves out of our own humanistic worldview; nor can we do anything to justify ourselves before God. There is no way to climb a tree and get a better perspective. We are like tiny ants on a giant globe, and without God we will never know where we are, who we are or what we are. Only the Holy Spirit can deliver us from such a foe of the mind, body and soul, and give us something of Himself that is divine, which can help us rise above our own humanity and become something even more than what Adam was promised. This gift of His grace is His workmanship that God prepared beforehand in Christ Jesus for good works, that we should walk in them. This grace that He is offering us in the form of wisdom of the Spirit leads to an understanding that can only come from God, which gives us direction that leads to our personalized trail of good works. Only God can reveal our trail to us. This trail puts meaning in our lives and answers the question what we were meant to do. 

(205kb) Salvation >> Salvation is based on God’s promises >> Faith versus works >> The faith of God versus the faith of men >> Faith is the work of God – When we ask what we must do to be saved, there is a conspicuous blank spot in the gospel, since there is nothing we can do to be saved but is purely by faith, though we commit our lives to Him and make ourselves available for whatever God would have us do. Each person has a unique calling, indicating that there is no one law anymore, and this becomes the out-showing of our faith, and it is all very nebulous to the fleshly mind. The secular man wants concrete and practical things to do in order to earn his salvation; this is why all the religions of the world have tangible activities to measure their faith, but Christianity has none of this. There is nothing we can do to be saved except to believe in Jesus. It is an offense to many for God to demand faith only from us, for the world cannot generate a saving faith in Jesus without His help. There are many people in the Church today who want to believe in Jesus apart from Him, but this kind of faith cannot save us, for it cannot rise above a mere affirmation of certain doctrines. Genuine Christian faith comes from God as a gift, and He calls us to keep the faith throughout our lives, and He will receive us into His heaven at the advent of our death. This really grinds against unbelievers, because it requires them to ask God for help to believe in Jesus, and it requires them to fashion their lives around Him, which is the opposite of their real aspirations -- to be self-serving. Death is waiting for each of us at the end of our lives in this physical body. Those who consider this life to be the only one that has any meaning will soon enough discover that it is a dead-end, but for those who believe in Jesus, that dead-end called death is a door that opens for them to continue with their lives on the other side, where life really begins. This is why it is important to begin doing what God has called us to do, which will direct us to our true identity as sons and daughters of God.

Eph 2-8,9 

(41f) Judgment >> Satan destroyed >> Be like Jesus >> Righteousness of faith >> Saved by grace through faith

KJV    NAS  /  Navigation Bar

10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

Eph 2-10

(4g) Responsibility >> Advocate God’s cause >> He who is faithful in little is also faithful in much -- This verse goes along with verse 7. There is a general calling and a specific calling from God. Our general calling is to produce the fruit of the Spirit, which is the same for everyone (Gal 5-22,23), and our specific calling is to develop the hearing ear, to listen for the Holy Spirit and let Him lead us down the path of His choosing. We don’t see too many people doing this; we don’t see too many faces beaming with the glory of God (see 2Cor 3,1-18). If the word of God is being fulfilled in people today, it is manufactured by the flesh instead of by the Spirit, because they don’t want to die to self, which is what it takes to fulfill our calling from God. They want to live this life in the flesh and they want to be just as worldly as the world. That is not the gospel of Christ; we are called to forsake this world and live godly in the present age (Tit 2-11,12). God has prearranged an agenda of good works for us to complete along life’s narrow way. One completed good work will lead to the next, like a flashlight progressively illumines a dark path just far enough ahead to see the next step. To the degree that we fulfill God’s trail of good works is the degree to which we will understand the surpassing riches of His grace, and therefore the more He will entrust to us His treasures both here and in eternity. 

(42j) Judgment >> Satan destroyed >> Transformed >> Conform to the walk of Christ – Discovering our purpose in life is like an airplane pilot who finds the runway and pushes full steam ahead. The airplane is the new man that God has created in us, and when the runway ends, we will fly to our new life in heaven. The good works that we performed according to the plan and purpose of God will become analogous to the new works that God has prepared for us in heaven. The works in heaven that He has prepared for us are designed so that the importance of what we do will continually increase throughout all eternity. There will be no point in which our heavenly works will suddenly meet a threshold, such as our earthly salary. We work someplace and get a raise every year until one day we don’t get any more raises. That will not be the case in heaven, and the job He gives us will be based on what we do for Him here. It is not the greatness of the works that we do for Him in this life; it is the fact that we are doing what the Holy Spirit planted in our hearts. What we need to do is what God wants us to do. Our pastor doesn’t know what we should be doing; our best friend and fellow Christian doesn’t know; our mother doesn’t know. More often than not we ourselves don’t even know, but it is our job to discover it. The day we get saved we don’t know our purpose from God; all we know is that we are going to heaven, and our purpose is slowly revealed to us as we continually seek God, sometimes over a course of many years.

(44i) Judgment >> Transformed >> Fulfill your ministry >> Calling from God >> Complete it – This verse obviously pertains to our walk with God, alluding to the fact that it is not something we do randomly based on our own volition or authority, but something we do as a matter of fulfilling God’s intended purpose that He had prepared from all eternity. These are works that God wants us to do, not works that we want to do for God. The difference between these two is astronomical. There are those who avail themselves to God but don’t know His purpose, and what does the Church have them doing but folding chairs, cleaning toilets, vacuuming the rug, contributing to pot-blesses, etc., but what does God want them doing? We’re called to be servants, and so we should be doing these things, but at the same time we should also be doing the good works that God has prepared for us from all eternity. From the foundation of the world, God has called some to wash dishes, but the point is we should be getting on our knees and figuring out God’s plan before we take another step; instead, this is what they do in place of God’s purpose, which cannot produce fruit like the good works that God has prepared for them.

(88d) Thy kingdom come >> Faith produces works >> The function of works in faith >> Faith doesn’t move God until it is manifested in the natural realm – the Church today believes very strongly in the grace of God, and we would think we could never possibly go wrong with that. The word of God, though it is not complicated, per se, it does get complicated when trying to avoid the truth, which apparently is happening in Christendom today pertaining to the subject of the anointing. People either over-think it or they don’t think about it at all. They are trying to save their lives against the advice of Christ (Jn 12-25); they want to live in this natural world, but we can’t do that and carry an anointing at the same time. They want to live in the world that Jesus said belongs to the devil; they don’t want to die to this life; they want to live by the Spirit but they don’t want to walk by the Spirit. They proclaim with all confidence that salvation is by grace alone, quoting Eph 2-8,9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Does this mean we can live any way we want? What do we do with works then? Paul has delivered to us his gospel of anti-legalism, and the interpretation of it today is to believe in a set of doctrines that teach the blood of Jesus cleansing us from all unrighteousness, and to completely trust in His sacrifice for our salvation. This is all biblical and true, but it is only one half of the truth. The other half is that God wants us to walk in divine works, not works of the law and not works of the flesh, but works that God has prepared for us from all eternity. God wants us walking in the fruit of the Spirit, not legalism. The only true path that is divine involves doing the works that God has prepared for us by listening to the Holy Spirit and doing whatever He says, but we cannot hear Him when we allow our flesh to reign. Therefore God has called us to die to self and discover the path of divine works that God will perform through us that will manifest as an anointing. This is the work of God (Jn 6-29).

(91m) Trail Of Good Works (Key Verse)

(115l) Thy kingdom come >> Faith >> Working the grace of God >> Through Good Works >> Works that God prepared for you – If any verse served as a focal point of the Bible, Eph 2,8-10 would certainly be in the running, along with Mat 6-10 that also converges on the entirety of Scripture, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” To reject this truth brings about the irony of satanic deception and his apostasy in the Church that centers around the false doctrines of God’s grace. Much of what the Church believes about the grace of God is false, and the vast majority of their grace doctrines came from the writings of Paul. Peter said about Paul’s writings, “Regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction” (2Pet 3-15,16). The word “grace”, if we say anything negative about their doctrines concerning it, can be excommunication from some churches. Most Bible believing Christians believe it is impossible to corrupt the doctrine of grace, yet when we try to implement the grace of God, our emotions bear its claws before we can have a lucid thought about it. Actually, to say that our doctrines are screwed-up is not really accurate. Instead, it is more accurate to say they are missing altogether. Everything is fine when God imparts His grace into us; we receive the indwelling Holy Spirit and are born-again, which is the seal of our salvation, so far so good, but this is where Church doctrine abruptly ends. When we attempt to implement the grace of God, the Church has no doctrines for that, and so it doesn’t know how to understand it. God is calling us to do something with the grace He has given us. Eph 2-8,9 is the Church’s all time favorite passage, but they stop short of understanding that God has given us responsibility to work with Him to effect this grace in our daily walk in the world around us. Here are two incredible verses relating to that fact: 2Cor 6-1, “And working together with Him, we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain,” and 2Tim 2-1, “You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” God has given us His grace not just to save us for eternal life, but also to walk on the trail of good works that He has prepared for us. This trail is ordained by God and is therefore divine. God has certain good works that He has for us to do through the grace of God, a ministry for each person, and He wants us to fulfill that ministry (2Tim 4-5). He wants us to Work the Grace of God into our lives. We use His strength to do this, and the first step is knowing His will. These things should be happening in every Christian; however, almost no one believes these teachings are even biblical. People get saved and then sit down, and the rest of their Christianity is mere maintenance. Most Christians are just waiting for their natural lives to end so they can go to heaven. They help in their local church and try to be good Christians, but they never seek God for their mission in life, located on this trail of good works, better known as the narrow way.

(127n) Thy kingdom come >> Manifestations of faith >> Goodness >> Devote your life to doing good

(128j) Thy kingdom come >> Manifestations of faith >> Bearing fruit >> Living a fruitful life >> Living a continuous life of fruitfulness

(155kb) Witness >> Validity of the believer >> Evidence of salvation >> You will know them by their fruits >> You will know them by their good deeds >> Good works prepared before the foundation of the world

(219j) Sovereignty >> God overrides the will of man >> Predestination >> God’s calling is our destiny

(236e) Kingdom of God >> Pursuing the kingdom >> Invest in the kingdom >> Invest your strength into the kingdom >> Invest your labors

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11 Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called " Uncircumcision" by the so-called "Circumcision," which is performed in the flesh by human hands -

Eph 2,11-22

(36l) Gift of God >> Adopted >> We are adopted by the Spirit – The gentile nations have inherited God’s promise to Abraham, who left his heritage behind at the call of God to search for a city, whose architect and builder is God. The gentiles have also inherited the law that He later instituted through Moses. It turns out that even Israel’s Messiah was not their own, though He belonged to them first and foremost, yet Christ was also the world’s Messiah. Even though this barrier has been abolished, it doesn’t mean that God draws no distinction between Jew and gentile. Israel's identity is retained in the flesh, though spiritually they are no different from gentiles in that they both need Jesus to become children of God and to receive the Holy Spirit for eternal life. The fact is, God called Israel to be his evangelist to the world, but they were disobedient to the point that God never even got a chance to voice His vision to them. Israel considered what God had given them to belong only to them, considering other nations as less than dogs. God’s hope was that Israel would be more faithful and testify about the great things that God had done for them, so that the nations would seek God through Israel. That did happened to a point, but by no means according to god's expectations.

(211a) Salvation >> Jews and gentiles are being saved >> Gentiles included >> Fellow heirs with Israel (Spiritual Jew) >> We are one in Christ – These were man’s circumstances before Christ; they had no hope and were without God in the world. He talked about two groups, the nation of Israel and all the other nations of the world (the gentiles). It says that God has brought the two groups together, and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall between them, so that no longer are there Jew and Gentile, but they are now one in Christ. That, however, does not mean the Jew is no longer Jewish or no longer a special race to God; rather, God will continue honoring His covenant with Israel that He made to Abraham. He has not forgotten them, for the Jew still has some unfinished business to do. God intends to call Israel back into service to lead a revival that will bring in billions of souls to the kingdom of god in the last days. It says, "He has abolished this dividing wall between Jew and gentile nations by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace." Therefore, to the degree that the gentile nations are at peace with Israel is a sign that the nations are obeying God and believing the gospel, but to the degree that hostility among the gentile nations still exists is a sign of disobedience and have rejected God’s purpose for themselves to be saved through the sacrifice of God’s Son, and for that they will pay the ultimate price of their souls. 

Eph 2,11-16

(32a) Gift of God >> God is our Father >> Grace >> God’s grace seeks man – The Old Testament gentile believer could become a member of Israel, but he could not become a true Jew in that he would never be a descendent of Abraham, but Paul was saying that this has now changed. Since Christ has shed His blood, and has invited the gentiles to the promises of Israel by faith in Jesus Christ, we who formerly were distant have not been brought near, meaning that there is something literal that has transpired in the gentiles to give them Jewish origin. What we have in common with the believing Jew is the indwelling Holy Spirit. That is, as the believing Jew possesses the Holy Spirit in their hearts, so does the believing gentile, and in that sense we are essentially the same. Paul says that being a believing spiritual Jew is infinitely more important than being an unbelieving physical Jew. In Romans he said that if Jews don’t believe in Jesus for the remission of their sin, they are unbelievers and have broken covenant with Abraham the believer, but the believing gentile has faith in common with Abraham, and in that sense he is more a member of God’s chosen race than the unbelieving Jew.

Eph 2-11,12

(217j) Sovereignty >> God overrides the will of man >> God’s will over man >> I never knew you >> Because you are not of His sheep

(240h) Kingdom of God >> Opposition toward the Kingdom of God >> Hindering the kingdom >> Natural disadvantage >> Natural disadvantage of the world -- These verses go with verses 1-3

Eph 2-11

(190h) Die to self (Process of substitution) >> Separation from the old man >> Circumcision >> Circumcision is a sign of obedience >> Circumcision is a sign of believing – Gentiles had no inheritance with Israel before Christ. In Old Testament times any gentile could join Israel and become a Jew in practice only; he could be circumcised and live like a Jew and obey Israel’s laws, but he would never be a descendent of Abraham. Circumcision represented the covenant that God made with Abraham when it said, “And he [Abraham] believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness” (Genesis 15-6). The gentile can join Israel if he believes in their God and receives circumcision as a sign of faith, and honors the Law of Moses and despise his pagan religion. When the annual sacrifice was offered through the Levitical priesthood, the application was extended to the gentile believer, but he could not obtain rights to the temple or personally ask for mercy through the priest, who offered sacrifice of a dove and performed the ceremony of sin’s remission.

12-17 remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, 15 by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, 16 and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity. 17 AND HE CAME AND PREACHED PEACE TO YOU WHO WERE FAR AWAY, AND PEACE TO THOSE WHO WERE NEAR;

Eph 2,12-16

(38a) Judgment >> Blood of Jesus >> God judged the devil through the blood of His son

(119l) Thy kingdom come >> Manifestations of faith >> Curse of God is broken >> Curse of the law is broken

Eph 2-12

(16b) Sin >> Man’s nature is instinctively evil >> Man is an enemy of God -- This verse goes with verses 1-3

(165d) Works of the devil >> Manifestations of the devil >> The world is at enmity with God >> The world has no hope

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Eph 2,13-16

(136e) Temple >> Your spirit is the temple of God >> The body of Christ >> Jesus’ fleshly body >> The flesh of Jesus’ sacrifice

Eph 2-13

(81k) Thy kingdom come >> Pray without ceasing >> For the Church >> Giving thanks

Eph 2,14-22

(131jc) Thy kingdom come >> Manifestations of faith >> Unity >> Many members but one body >> Many bricks but one temple

Eph 2,14-19

(126f) Thy kingdom come >> Manifestations of faith >> Peace >> Terms of peace

(135m) Temple >> Your spirit is the temple of God >> The body of Christ >> Similarity in the body >> The things we have in common >> Common salvation

Eph 2,14-16

(26d) Sin >> Consequences of sin >> Death is separation from God’s life – These two groups to whom Paul is referring, Jews and gentiles, God has become our peace, who made both one in Christ. He broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, suggesting there was a division between them. God literally created the Jew through Abraham merely by speaking to him, and he left his homeland and went to a place that he did not know, and his descendents became the Jews. His purpose for the Jew was to become a shining example to the world how to behave before Almighty God. Their first purpose was to be God’s hammer and destroy the wicked people in the land of promise, and then to inhabit their land and show the world how one should live and serve God. Of course they refused to follow God’s purpose and calling. They were commanded to keep their generations pure, no mixing of the races. He wanted the Jews to remain His chosen people in the world. However, since Christ has shed His blood for mankind there has been a mixing of Jew and gentile, not genetically but spiritually. God has given us of His Spirit to be born again, offering this gift to the Jew first, and then to the gentiles after the Jews rejected it. However, this was not God’s plan; He intended to raise up His Jewish nation to proclaim the gospel to the gentile nations as leaders in things pertaining to God, thus breaking down the barrier of the dividing wall between Jew and gentile. The Jew is yet to realize these things.

(46aa) Judgment >> Spiritual warfare >> Subjecting your flesh >> Violent take it by force >> Taking the sinful nature by force

(52b) Judgment >> Judging Church with world >> Law judges sin >> Law is hostile against us

(59a) Paradox >> Two implied meanings >> Enmity between Jew and gentile (anti-Semitism) / Enmity between man and God (the law) – Paul speaks about Christ abolishing in His flesh the enmity between God and man and between Jew and gentile. If God has rectified these things, then why does anti-Semitism still exist in the world? There is yet another meaning to the word enmity, referring also to the law of commandments, which addresses sin. Using the nails of Jesus’ cross, God has forever pinned His promise of forgiveness on the one hanging from those nails for everyone who would believe in Him for eternal life, nailing sin also to the cross by association with the law. All these things died with Him. The power of sin died with the law, as He brought forth a new way of serving God through the Spirit, who speaks in our hearts, giving us a new desire to serve Him that we never had following the commandments. The Holy Spirit speaks the words of the law, affording us the will to obey Him. There was enmity between Jew and gentile and enmity between man and God, but now there is no longer excuse for our anti-Semitism and no longer excuse for our rebellion against God, because we have become His children.

Eph 2-15

(238e) Kingdom of God >> Pursuing the kingdom >> Transferring the kingdom >> The kingdom is transferred to the Church >> New creation >> The new creation is our spiritual identity

Eph 2-17

(71a) Authority >> Believer’s authority >> We have authority from God to evangelize the world >> We have an anointing to preach the gospel – The New Testament is just as much a book of prophecy as the Old Testament. Whatever the Old Testament said when Paul went preaching Jesus to the people he fulfilled, and now everything Paul said is prophetic to us, so when we incorporate his words into our lives, we too become a fulfillment of prophecy, in that every word originates from a spirit of prophecy, which then makes us all prophets who obey God. We all have an anointing as Christians; we are called the “anointed ones”; so if we want to fulfill prophecy, all we have to do is incorporate the word of God into our lives. For example, we can go and tell people about Jesus, and to them we are prophets. That doesn’t mean they will listen to us anymore than they listened to the prophets of the Old Testament, but persecuted them and most were martyred. So if any persecution comes to us, they should understand that they are doing it to a prophet. Some might say we are not prophets because we don’t have the word of the Lord; however, Scripture is a perpetual statement from God; He is always speaking His word, particularly in the New Testament.

(142c) Witness >> Validity of Jesus Christ >> Old Testament bears witness to the new >> Prophesy about evangelism – This verse is in reference to (Isaiah 57-19), similar to the verse in Rom 10-15, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things” (taken from Isaiah 52-7). Paul was applying this to the gentiles of the Ephesians, and the context is that they have been included in the commonwealth of Israel, and he is reminding them of the days that he came to Ephesus and preached the gospel to them, and they listened and were saved. He was telling them that the ministry of an evangelist was a fulfillment of prophecy. Did the Old Testament writer of this passage know he was writing prophecy? Probably, he was a prophet and knew God was speaking to Him as he wrote. All prophecy has its fulfillment, but what do we know about the fulfillment of prophecy in our own time? We usually think about endtime prophecy, but there are prophecies other than endtime prophecy that are fulfilled in our own time whenever we obey Scripture.

18 for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. 

(136g) Temple >> Your spirit is the temple of God >> The body of Christ >> Jesus’ spiritual body – The building that is growing into a holy temple in the Lord is the Lord’s temple, meaning that He is the one who will occupy it. Note also that it is growing, because nothing that belongs to Him is stagnant. He inhabits the individual being built, even as He dwells in the temple, so God is “through all and in all” (Eph 4-6). For God to dwell in the temple is to dwell in our unity. Mat 18-20 says, “For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.” Part of the unity of the body of Christ is that they all agree; in fact, we could say that being in agreement is like the mortar between the blocks.

(137a) Building The Temple (Key verse)

(140b) Temple >> Temple made without hands >> Hiding place >> Worshipping God in His temple

(140g) Temple >> Temple made without hands >> Christ builds the temple from the bricks of the Church – There is a lot of construction work mentioned in this passage; there is the construction work of the apostles and prophets, and there is the building of the Church. There is also the building of the individual as both a noun and a verb. To the degree that the word of God is building this temple in the Spirit is the degree to which God is building human souls individually and collectively, held together by the mortar of anointing. There is no lie among the people of God in this temple, though today there may be plenty of false doctrine and false teaching and heresy. There may be many false prophets and sin associated with apostasy thriving among people who call themselves Christians, but in heaven these things are not happening. In heaven their souls and their bodies are one with the truth. Therefore, "Your kingdom come. Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven" (Mat 6-10).

Eph 2-18,19

(208h) Salvation >> The salvation of God >> Personal relationship >> Being the friend of God >> Relationship with God by the Spirit

Eph 2-18

(114k) Thy kingdom come >> Faith >> Working the grace of God >> Working God’s grace through Christ >> Jesus is the way to the Father – The fact that Jesus provided access for us to the Father was an example of Him working the grace of God in His own life, and for us to seek his eternal life is our example of working the grace of God. Jesus is the way to the Father, but knowing that doesn’t end our search for God. We don’t have eternal life just because Jesus went to the cross. Jesus can point down the road that leads to the Father, but until we walk down that road and obtain the blessing, we still don’t have it. If we don’t seek God for His blessing of eternal life, then having access to the Father through Christ is useless. Some say that the Old Testament law is no longer in effect,’ yet God expects us to seek Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, just like the law says. This suggests that the grace of God was give to us that we might fulfill the law, and while we are at it to do the specific with that God has planned for us.

(132c) Temple >> Your body is the temple of God >> Holy Spirit is in God’s people >> Spirit of God in the spirit of man >> Spirit gives access to the Father through Christ – When it says both, it means Jews and gentiles, and when it says access, it means we both have the opportunity to find the Father if we seek Him with all our hearts. There are too many people in the Church today who think that all they need to do is believe a set of doctrines and it automatically guarantees them a spot in heaven, but this word “access” doesn’t say that. If we’ve been granted access to a certain country, for instance, if we don’t go there, it does us no good. We have been given access, but that access does not guarantee we possess eternal life until we personally enter His Kingdom, which is like another country with buildings and walls that are invisible to the naked eye and yet exist all around us, as Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is in your midst” (Lk 17-21).

(255f) Trinity >> Father, Son and Holy Spirit >> The process of imparting the substance of God >> Father discloses the word by the Spirit – Paul uses the word “both” here. Who are both, but the Jew and the gentile? The amazing thing about this verse is that it's the most precise single verse in the Bible that describes the trinity. It is a very short verse that alludes to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in only a handful of words. In Christ we have access in one Spirit to the Father.

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19-22 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God's household, 20 having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, 21 in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, 22 in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.

Eph 2,19-22

(72h) Authority >> Hierarchy of authority >> More Authority the More Responsibility >> Closer we get to Jesus the more authority we have

(129f) Thy kingdom come >> Manifestations of faith >> Unity >> love perfects unity >> Love is the mortar between the bricks

(137c) Temple >> Building the temple (with hands) >> Jesus is the foundation of the Church >> Jesus is the cornerstone – Although Jesus never wrote a word that survived, yet He is the embodiment of God’s word. Our salvation is based squarely on the Scriptures. This is how we know the truth about God. However, the Bible can only tell us the facts; the truth resides in our spirit. When we believe God’s word, God is able to convert the facts of the Scriptures into spiritual truth, which is an attribute of God. He is the sole owner of the truth, and He shares His truth with us. As a result, Christ is the cornerstone of the Church, who is the temple. Jesus causes it to stand upright without the bricks falling into a heap. The cornerstone is like the Achilles’ heel of a building, but if it is constructed right becomes the strength of the building. The building will not fall because the cornerstone was placed correctly, but if the cornerstone is laid improperly, the building will collapse. All the weight is on that cornerstone, suggesting that the building would naturally fall in the direction of that cornerstone if it were removed. If any brick were taken from the building, it would weaken the structure though it would probably remain standing indefinitely, but if the cornerstone were removed, eventually the building would fall. Based on the way buildings are constructed, there would be a settling, and it would have settled on the cornerstone, but with the cornerstone removed, the settle would unsettle the entire building, stress cracks would form, and once the building began to lean, the structure could no longer support its weight; its days would be numbered.

(137m) Temple >> Building the temple (with hands) >> Maturity >> Maturing with our brothers >> Employing your gifts to mature the body (Spiritual fellowship) – Without unity the Church can accomplish nothing. Unity is more than being friendly, more than being willing to talk to others and more than being impartial. These things may be aspects of unity but they all lack its essence, which is a spiritual substance best described as love, and love is produced by faith, and faith is something so ethereal we cannot manufacture it or really even define it. We either have it or we don’t; it comes from God, and we are commanded to protect it above all else, because it has many enemies. There are forces that want to kill our faith; the better we protect it, the better it shines in our hearts and the better it produces love, and the more potential for unity in the body of Christ. This is the ministry of the people, and the pastor needs to give the ministry back to the people to whom it belongs, and if he doesn’t the Church will never reach beyond its borders to save souls; without unity the Church will never fulfill the great commission. The Church today is like the American government, they say that government belongs to the people, but since this edict was pronounced in the US constitution people in government have effectively taken the power from the people and made the people subservient to them. The same has happened in our churches; the ministry has been taken from the people, and now the pastor is the only person with a ministry.

(140c) Temple >> Temple made without hands >> Hiding place >> House where you live with Jesus – The Scriptures have been very meticulously written for our benefit. Paul depicts them as a building being fitted together and growing into a holy temple in the Lord. This is what God wants to happen in our minds, structuring a form of a temple as it were, fitting together the pieces of God’s word like the pieces of a building. This knowledge is a living, breathing person, who is not us or Him, but a new creation consisting of both us and Him. Jesus Christ is manifesting in us from the seed that He planted on the day of our salvation. As God stitches together His word in our hearts, so He stitches together His people. That is, just as this structure of the truth is growing in our spirit, so He proportionately structures His people in unity, “being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.” Once this building project is complete God enters the Church, the one made entirely of people in unity. The physical structure of the Church, the one made of wood, bricks and mortar, these parts may be united, but they have no effect on the growth of the body of Christ. Just as the Church was meticulously built from hard work by the construction workers, so God wants us to work hard in fitting our lives together with one another, not just socializing, but on a spiritual level to the degree that we know the truth, to the degree that these same things are happening in our hearts.

(229d) Kingdom of God >> God’s kingdom is a living organism >> Kingdom grows by itself >> God causes the growth >> Kingdom grows according to the will of God – There is more to unity than just being in agreement, for there are religious denominations and political factions that are in agreement, but have no power to change the world the way the Church does when it is unified around the truth. Imagine how the Church could change the world if the entire body of Christ on a global scale were united. The real power of unity is in the Spirit. We should also remember that the temple can only be built through the advent of unity, since the analogy is of many bricks organized into a temple. The substance of the structure is unity, the temple being the face of unity, a body of believers organized to produce a single outcome, and that outcome is the temple itself. God dwells in our unity among a people who are fitted together as a single entity in the Church. When the people of God are finally fitted together in the last days as a single temple in the Lord, Jesus will inhabit our unity. In that day God will be able to accomplish anything among us and overcome the greatest forces this world could muster against us. Satan will be ravaging the earth at the time of the end, establishing his one world economy and government and martyring the saints on a global scale. Meanwhile, God will have His Two Witnesses defending Jerusalem and the 144,000 conducting a Great Endtime Revival that will bring about unity in the saints that will topple Satan’s empire. The power of Satan will be destroyed through the agency of human flesh once again. Jesus did it in His own flesh on the cross 2,000 years ago, and in the last days He will do it again through the flesh of the Church.

(230k) Kingdom of God >> God’s kingdom is a living organism >> Mystery of godliness >> Solving the mystery of godliness >> The love of Christ is the mystery of godliness – We have gone from being estranged from God, while living in a world that has forsaken Him, that cannot know God on its own, no matter how hard it tries. We’ve come from a hopeless existence as strangers and aliens of promise, to becoming fellow citizens with the saints and are of God’s household. God hasn’t saved us just a little, but has saved us entirely. The kind and the level of love that God has for us is immeasurable. He doesn’t just love us a lot; that sounds like there is an end to it. God’s love is infinite; it is His primary attribute, so much that it defines him (1Jn 4-16). Some look for God’s love and can’t find it, while others look for the end of His love and can’t find it. It’s all in how and where you look. If you look for His love in other Christians, the best you will find is their righteousness, whereas God’s righteousness is locked in a vault in their hearts, where no one but God and that person has access to it. However, if you look directly to God for His righteousness, you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart (Deut 4-29). God has kept nothing from us; He has even given us authority to partake of His own divinity as He imparts His Spirit in us. When Jesus sent the Holy Spirit into every believer, He fused Himself into our souls, so that we have become one with Him.

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Eph 2-19,20

(141g) Witness >> Validity of Jesus Christ >> Old Testament bears witness to the new >> It bears witness to Jesus >> Prophesy about Jesus’ resurrection

Eph 2-19

(237j) Kingdom of God >> Pursuing the kingdom >> Transferring the kingdom >> The Church is transferred to the kingdom >> Citizens of heaven – Paul is ignoring the fact that there are unbelieving Jews, pointing out only those who believe in Jesus as a standard to communicate the principle of faith, that it is more important to believe in Jesus than it is to be German, Norwegian, Iranian or African. It is more important to believe in Jesus than it is to bear our own last name. It is more important to be a member of God's family than to be a member of our earthly family, children of our parents and sibling of our brothers and sisters. Earthly families will one day be abolished, but the family of God will continue throughout eternity. Faith in Jesus gives us eternal life, and everything we do in His name becomes eternal. Some of the experiences we have in this life that we have endured will remain forever, along with some of the achievements we have accomplished in His name. In heaven we will not forget the service we rendered to the Lord in this life.

Eph 2,20-22

(91h) Thy kingdom come >> The called >> Walking along the narrow way >> Those who walk in their calling are united

(136hb) Temple >> Your spirit is the temple of God >> The body of Christ >> Body of Christ consists of individual members >> We are being fitted together

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