Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
Are you one of those blessed people known as "new believers?" I was once one! You feel strange: what will this new "family" be like? Did I make a mistake? What's involved in my new "membership"?
"Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a habitation [dwelling place] of God in the Spirit."
The dear apostle Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians (2:19-22) is welcoming you, and telling you that you are now--careful, let's say it right!--way above the angels because you are now a member inside the "family," living in God's "house." The holy angels step aside as you pass by, for they respect you. There are two categories--"saints," which are people like you, and those mysterious "members of the household of God" who are not classed as "saints." You have a lot of new acquaintances to meet!
You'd never think of abandoning this fellowship, would you? But the Enemy would love to entice you away; so take care.
Further, Paul says you are a permanent addition to the "building" under construction, one of the "stones" that will endure the ages. From now on Heaven looks upon you as a fellow-stone with "the apostles and prophets." Your name is inscribed, along with theirs. Now you will know a lasting thrill as you read Isaiah or Jeremiah, or wherever you read in your Bible: you are "kin" with those characters! Being in the "family," your contacts with every overcoming Bible author and character are more intimate than any video or movie could make them to be. Your Bible has become a new book!
And underneath you as a Foundation is that great Cornerstone, Jesus; the same "granite" that all the little stones are made of, because when He became the Head of the family He took the same flesh and blood, the same nature, that all of us have. And He has made us all to be "partakers of the divine nature."
Each "stone" is a living entity, each different than all the rest, each to be conferred with immortality at the coming of Jesus, each to revel for eternity in the peculiar and unique personality that he or she is "in Christ." All redeemed by "the blood of Christ."
--Robert J. Wieland
From: Ephesians: You've Been "Adopted," 2005.
Copyright © 2017 by "Dial Daily Bread."
