Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
Have you ever wanted to stay away from a party for fear you wouldn't be welcome? Many feel that way about going to God's "welcome party" for people who will live in His New Jerusalem. They are afraid of Him, innocently so. They would rather not even try to be saved. These people need to realize now that they are welcomed already.
The "welcome" is in Paul's letter to the Ephesians! It's spoken by the Lord through His word. He honors His word in the Bible. Jesus told the Jews that He said nothing of Himself, but only what the Father told Him. "I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak" (John 12:49). It was through the Bible, the actual Old Testament that Jesus held in His hands, that the Father spoke to Him. All the wonderful things that Jesus said in His ministry, He garnered from His reading of that Bible!
Likewise, when you let the Father speak to you through the Word, you will know the welcome is yours now as surely as when you hear Him repeat it in that coming glad day when you see Him.
We read in chapter one of Ephesians how the Father has already:
1. "Blessed us [that's everybody!] with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places." (The fact that some people refuse the "blessing" doesn't mean it hasn't been given to them.)
2. "Predestined us to adoption as sons" (but of course we can refuse).
3. Enjoyed His "good pleasure" in doing this--that's the "fun" He gets in His plan of redemption. (God deserves some "pleasure"!)
4. In Christ He has given us "redemption through His blood"--that is, past tense. The blood was shed for everybody; therefore all have been given that redemption, even if many reject it.
5. He has given us "the forgiveness of sins." The word means separated them from us. (We can be stupid and take our sins back again! They were cast into the depths of the sea like the Titanic resting deep down; but people have retrieved things out of the Titanic.)
6. He gives us as much "wisdom and prudence" as we are willing to receive (let's not shrug it off as proud "know-it-alls").
7. "He has made us accepted in the Beloved" (that's our "welcome!").
Let's not stop to question if all this is true for that could be unbelief; He has said it.
--Robert J. Wieland
From: Ephesians: You've Been "Adopted," 2005.
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