Ephesians 1:17-23- "That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him: The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, And what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: And hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be the head over all things to the Church, Which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.".....The apostle Paul is telling the Ephesians that he is praying for them, that they would have the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of the Lord, and he knew well that this could only be possible if God GAVE them the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. Paul knew that they could not somehow think or meditate, or earn through any type of effort of their own, the spiritual enlightenment that only Almighty God could possibly bestow, and so he prays that God would grant it to them. He was aware from the moment that Christ apprehended him on the road to Damascus that everything that he, or anybody else ever received in the way of spiritual things, had to come from God Himself, and that it was incumbent upon us, His Childern, to RECEIVE. God initiates- we respond.....
It is amazing to me that we believers still manage to get entangled in bizarre doctrines and teachings in the wisdom and knowledge (and personalities) of mere men, when we have God's living Word at our fingertips! It baffles me that the church has moved away from the supernatural working of God's Spirit in our own lives, as if simply reading and studying the Bible, learning the original Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew languages, and studying the history of the church were what gave us real spiritual power. That all may give us pride and an ego, but not power! Paul knew his history- he'd been a Pharisee. He knew the Law of God, and all that it required- and he'd given his entire life to it! Sincere? You'd better believe it! And yet, those were the very things that he counted "LOSS for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord" (Read Philippians 3:7-10). Nobody could fool Paul on the things of God- Nobody.... because HE KNEW CHRIST.
Not some sentimental idea of Him, but Christ Himself, and he devoted the entire remainder of his life to Him- the One for Whom he had "suffered the loss of all things", and yet he counted all of them but dung, "THAT I MAY WIN CHRIST" (Philippians 3:8). His relationship with Jesus Christ was no conceptual thing. It was a genuine, living, abiding relationship that eventually brought him right into the very presence of the Lord he so loved, for all eternity. THAT was his reward- not fame, not fortune, not a good name or recognition, but Christ Himself.....
The world looks at us today and sees the church in a wheelchair- no power at all, just crippled. Why? Because we're not really 'abiding in Christ' as we were called to. We, the Church, the Body of Christ, were created to allow God to move in and through us, but so much of what we do is merely mental, not spiritual, and you'll find no power in that.... I love the name, "Shekinah", because it refers to God's immediate Presence. No one who knows the Shekinah Glory of His Presence will ever, nor could ever, be satisfied with less, because nothing on earth compares to it, and that is how our God designed us- to yearn after Him with all of our being. Only as we do that, and truly and constantly abide in Christ, will we be in actual practice what God's Word already says that we are- "His Body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all" (Ephesians 1:23).
En Agape,
Jim Ewing
