Journey into Lightl

This week I have been asked by my church to teach on Ephesians 1. The basic message from the chapter is that God has made us believers rich. Our response is to give him thanks and ask him to help us realize how rich we are.

One of these riches for me has been a new identity.

Instead of being someone who is not very important unless he is achieving or impressing, I now rest more in being important all the time.

Instead of being someone who doesn’t feel loved unless certain people approve of me, I now rest more in being loved even when rejected.

Instead of being someone who feels unacceptable when I fail to meet my standards, I now rest in being acceptable even when I fail miserably.

But is having a new identity the only thing that makes us rich?

Why We Are Rich

We are rich because we are God’s kids, Thus we are greatly loved, protected, accepted and respected, just like children in a loving family.

We have been given everything we need to live a full and productive life (2 Peter 1:3).

We can live in an intimate relationship with him now and will live forever with him in heaven, painless, joyous, and meaningful lives (Revelations 21:4).

God has made us rich. But many of us don’t possess this reality in our experience. God challenges us like he did Israel to possess the reality that we are rich.

God said to Israel and says to us,

“See, I have placed the land before you; go in and possess the land which the LORD swore to give to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob” (Deuteronomy 1:8).

Like Israel, we must fight to possess what God has given to us as a gift.

Living Like a Rich Person

The first step in living like a rich person is to realize that it’s God’s job to make it real for us. As Israel needed God fighting for them to possess the Promised Land, we need God fighting for us to escape living like a pauper.

God says to us through Moses, “Do not be terrified; do not be afraid of them. The Lord your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did for you in Egypt (Deuteronomy 1:29-30).

But to live the reality of being rich will involve a great fight by us too.

However, God leads the way as Paul indicates when he prays, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints” (Ephesians 1:18).

Therefore, God fights for us as we cooperate with him to possess the reality of being rich.

Next week, we will discuss how we can cooperate with God in living like the rich people we are.