Every believer’s new life in Christ [Part One]

Picture: There must be fruit. See The Good Fruit List: love [unselfish concern for others], joy, [inner] peace….

This is part of a series on Every believer’s new life in Christ: Ephesians 1

Growing into our natural new life in Christ
You are here: Every believer’s new life in Christ [Part One]
Explaining the Basic Christian Experience [Part Two]

Every believer’s new life in Christ
[Part One]
Ephesians 1

God requires an extreme type of relationship from us
Paul the Apostle explains that The One and Only God is extreme to the nth degree, and requires an extreme type of relationship from us. We can’t just make it our own way, and expect God to welcome us into His Kingdom on our own terms. What kind of a “god” would do that!? I’d say he would have to be quite namby pamby. ¹ Not the Almighty God of the Bible.

Our Extreme God of the Bible says we must get “reborn from above” by His Spirit, become “born again“. Quite the extreme experience! We then no longer will we be one of the walking dead. We will then have a Body by God (completed at the Rapture)! When we accept Him as Lord and Savior, become “born again” — He then comes in – to us, and resides in us forevermore. Is this you?

Paul prayed that you and I, when born again, will continue growing deeply, naturally, into further maturity that is available in our walk with God through His Holy Spirit. ²

Can Jesus save you?
The Bible says He most certainly can. No matter your heinous, heinous sins – Jesus saves us from our sin. He has saved sinners since time began. He saved the vile thief on the cross hanging next to Him. Jesus saved me. Has He saved you?

Choose to follow Jesus

Here’s the passage to read, Ephesians 1:13-23, and then, in Part Two, we will look into what it means for us today. This is a most fantastically rich passage explaining the wonder of passing from being “God-damned” to being “marvelously saved by Jesus”. Oh how marvelous this journey!

Ephesians 1:13-23

¹³In Him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the good news of your salvation, and [as a result] believed in Him, were stamped with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit [the One promised by Christ] as owned and protected [by God]. ¹⁴The Spirit is the ^[e]guarantee [the first installment, the pledge, a foretaste] of our inheritance until the redemption of God’s own [purchased] possession [His believers], to the praise of His glory.

¹⁵For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, ¹⁶I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers; ¹⁷[I always pray] that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may grant you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation [that gives you a deep and personal and intimate insight] into the true knowledge of Him [for we know the Father through the Son].

¹⁸And [I pray] that the eyes of your heart [the very center and core of your being] may be enlightened [flooded with light by the Holy Spirit], so that you will know and cherish the ^[f]hope [the divine guarantee, the confident expectation] to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the ^[g]saints (God’s people),

¹⁹and [so that you will begin to know] what the immeasurable and unlimited and surpassing greatness of His [active, spiritual] power is in us who believe.

These are in accordance with the working of His mighty strength ²⁰which He ^[h]produced in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, ²¹far above all rule and authority and power and dominion [whether angelic or human], and [far above] every name that is named [above every title that can be conferred], not only in this age and world but also in the one to come. ²²And He ^[i]put all things [in every realm] in subjection under Christ’s feet, and ^[j]appointed Him as [supreme and authoritative] head over all things in the church, ²³which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills and completes all things in all [believers].

NOTE: Read the full series on Every believer’s new life in Christ: Ephesians 1

Growing into our natural new life in Christ
You are here: Every believer’s new life in Christ [Part One]
Explaining the Basic Christian Experience [Part Two]

FOR MORE:

Our Life As God Sees It – Ephesians 2:1-10

*Capture each part of the process of being made alive in Christ.
Here the passage is broken into its separate phrases and nuanced truths
…explained here by the Apostle Paul in Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1-10.

There is only One God

Extreme to the nth degree

Approach God with a true and sincere heart

Your thinking or God’s Word?

Misunderstanding God

Is this you?

This is salvation

Bought with a price – the blood of Jesus

God forgives by His Holy Holy Justice

Jesus saves us from our sin

Jesus Brings Us To Creator God

What a privilege God gives us