For Me 5!

For Me 5!

Ephesians 3:16 ESV

[16] that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,

One of the greatest treasures that has been made known to man was revealed to Paul by the power of the Holy Spirit. This treasure is the gift of God given to mortal man, not because of anything mortal man could give to God as a worthy price for that which he had been given, but because of the nature of God Himself. We have an Almighty God who is greater and higher than anyone else, yet He would dare to deposit Himself into the hearts and lives of men who could not even help or save themselves. This God did not need anyone to further prove that He is God, but He is who He is, no matter what the world says or does. In His wisdom, the Bible records a man called Abraham that God chose for Himself, and decided to call them to Himself as His people. Israel was chosen by God to be the template for God's dealings with the human race, but they became complacent and entitled and of course, God allowed other nations to also come in and partake of the blessings that Israel had. 

Those who were not even directly related to Abraham, called the Gentiles, had now become known as fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. The people the world rejected had now been brought into the kingdom of God. This was the manifestation of the mystery that Paul had received by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Men who would ordinarily not be entitled to be benefits of the call that the man Abraham received could now place demands on these benefits. This is where the message of the grace of God can be both difficult to explain and also easy to accept. It is easy because grace does not need me to be 'qualified' because what grace needs is not what I can bring, but what God has and can give. It is also difficult because man thinks he needs to fight for everything he gets, thinking nothing good comes for free.

This was the message of Paul in the verse above: there are riches of God's glory that man has to know, understand and experience in order to understand who he is and what he has. When you refer to the 'riches of God's glory', there are dimensions that this earthly phase cannot fully explain. The verse above also adds that this grace is able to provide strength through the Holy Spirit. What this tells me is that the presence of the Holy Spirit is proof of God's empowerment and enablement. No man will get far or make it in life outside of the help and presence of the Holy Spirit. This enablement flows from the inner man and manifests on the outside. I must not focus on the outside at the expense of the inside. Do I have the presence of the Holy Spirit in me, or am I concerned only with what is going on outside? God is invested in my earthly and eternal impact. May I allow Him work. God's time of favour is here.