Faith Archives - Page 69 of 117

You’ve Been Given a Guarantee {No Matter What Monday}

October 9, 2017 by Marissa Leave a Comment

We’ve talked for the last few weeks about spiritual blessings from Ephesians 1. We’ve seen that God chose us because of His love, delights in adopting us into His family, and redeems us by His grace. Once we’ve received these gifts of salvation in Christ Jesus, how do we keep them? Can we lose these gifts by doubting or disappointing the One who gave them to us? We find the answer in these verses:

“In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory” (Ephesians 1:13-14).

Those who hear and believe are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. In John 7:37-39, Jesus promised to send the Spirit to those who believe in Him. So when God gives us the Holy Spirit, it proves two things: God keeps His promises, and we belong to Him.

We are sealed as a guarantee or down payment of our inheritance. We experience our inheritance in part now, but one day, we will experience the fullness of this inheritance in Heaven with Him. As we wait for that day, the Holy Spirit “bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:16-17a).

We are sealed until we acquire possession of our inheritance. The verse doesn’t say, “You were sealed until the day your faith wavered or until God got fed up with your repeated failures.” Our sealing—our belonging to Him because of the finished work of Jesus Christ—is guaranteed until we acquire possession of the eternal life given to us.

The Holy Spirit is a beautiful and complex gift from God. He is our Comforter, our Guide, our Sustainer. He is also our Guarantee, reminding us that our hope is certain because the One who saved us is also holding on to us.

No matter what you face this week, God’s given you His Spirit to guarantee His gifts.

You’ve Been Redeemed {No Matter What Monday}

October 2, 2017 by Marissa Leave a Comment

A few years ago, someone broke into my parents’ house while they were at work. The thief couldn’t carry much on his way out of the small bathroom window, so the most valuable item he stole was their iPad. Weeks later, the iPad turned up at a local pawn shop.

You’d think that if something was stolen from you and later found, it would be returned to you free of charge. But my dad actually had to go to the pawn shop and buy back his own iPad.

It reminds me of what God has done with us. We are His treasured possession, but we allowed ourselves to be led away from Him by our sin. Because we are precious to Him, God sent His Son to buy us back.

Ephesians 1:7: In [Jesus Christ] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.

We can’t redeem ourselves. If we go back to my stolen iPad analogy, the iPad didn’t pay the pawn shop for its freedom. The iPad couldn’t pay its own way. Likewise, we are unable to redeem ourselves—we need a Redeemer who can pay the debt we owe.

In Christ, we have redemption. According to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, redeem means “to buy back” or “to free from captivity by the payment of a ransom.” On the cross, Jesus paid the ransom to buy us back and free us from slavery to our sin.

Our redemption flows from the riches of God’s grace. Because God is rich in grace and mercy, He can pay the price to redeem us. He can forgive all our sins. He’s not just merciful—He’s rich in mercy. And since we are His children, we benefit from His riches.

No matter what you face this week, you have been redeemed by Jesus Christ because of the riches of God’s grace.

You’ve Been Adopted. {No Matter What Monday}

September 25, 2017 by Marissa Leave a Comment

As Hurricane Irma barreled through the Caribbean a couple of weeks ago, I received an email from a friend letting us know how the hurricane could affect her four-year-old daughter in Haiti.

You might be wondering, why does my friend have a young daughter in Haiti, riding out a hurricane with other orphans rather than with her family?

My friend and her husband are in the process of adopting their daughter. They’ve been to meet her, she’s called them Mama and Papa, and she belongs to them. But due to paperwork and bureaucracy, they haven’t yet brought her home. She’s no longer an orphan, but she still feels the pain of separation from her Mama and Papa.

This difficult situation serves as a beautiful picture of our life in Christ. We’ve been adopted. God signed our adoption papers with the blood of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, bringing many sons and daughters into His family. We’re not home yet, but we are a part of God’s household.

[God] predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will. (Ephesians 1:5)

As adopted children, we share in the benefits and inheritance of God’s family. Adoption is a legal proceeding that gives the adopted child the same rights and privileges as a biological child. And as God’s adopted children, we share in a glorious inheritance with Christ.

We who have been adopted call God our Father just as Jesus did. Romans 8:15 says we’ve received the Spirit, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” These are the same words Jesus used in Mark 14:36 when He cried out in prayer to His “Abba! Father!” We can approach our Abba Father with confidence that He hears us and cares for us.

God adopts us according to His good pleasure. The Greek word that is translated “purpose” in this verse could also be translated “good pleasure.” God delights in bringing us into His family and making us His sons and daughters.

No matter what you face this week, God delights in bringing you into His family.

God Chose You {No Matter What Monday}

September 18, 2017 by Marissa Leave a Comment

I stood in the grass behind Root Elementary School, waiting for my inevitable embarrassment. Two of my classmates stood facing the rest of us, wielding as much power as a 4^th grader could hope for. It was time to choose teams for kickball in P.E.

I stink at kickball. Always have, always will. No one has ever been excited about the prospect of having me on any sports team.

Maybe you’ve felt the sting of rejection, too. It’s not just a 4^th grade phenomenon. As a 40-year-old, I still feel left out, less than, and unwanted sometimes.

But Ephesians 1 gives us good news. Remember those spiritual blessings we talked about last week? Paul gives us more details as we keep reading:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. (Ephesians 1:3-4)

God chose you.

God chose you in Christ—His choosing is based on what Christ has done, not what you have done. He chose you in Christ and for Christ, to be one of those whom the Father has given the Son (John 10:29).

God chose you before the foundation of the world—before you ever had a chance to show Him what a great pick you’d be. Deuteronomy 7:6-8 tells us that God chose a people to be His treasured possession, not because they were great in number, but just because of His love and faithfulness.

God chose you to be holy and blameless before Him, because He has exchanged Christ’s perfect record for your sin. We can have confidence before God because He chose to pull us out of our sin and reconcile us to Himself (Colossians 1:22-23).

No matter what you face this week, God chose you because of His love.

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