love

Ephesians 3:18
I pray that you… …grasp how high and long and wide and deep is the love of Christ

Jesus loves us passionately.
It’s very easy to reduce our faith, our relationship with Him, to a philosophy, a worldview, a system of beliefs, an academic exercise, a culture, a hobby. It’s none of those things, it’s a love affair.

Jesus loves us and pursues us passionately. I am not included in His forgiveness because he died for the human race and I happen to be one of them. He died for ME.

That’s the love that surpasses knowledge (Ephesians 3:19)

ephesians 5

ephesianschapterfive

The husband being the head or leader of the marraige is not a popular idea but, as it says in ephesians, the husband is supposed to be the head of the marraige as Jesus is the head of the church. People tend to straight away think of lazy men bossing women around and expecting their wife to do everything for them, but that is not headship based on Jesus.

Leadership as a husband is not about making all the decisions or being the boss. It's modelled on Jesus who came to serve, not to be served. Its doing everything I can to make sure Lisa can be as close to God as possible (v27). Praying for her, supporting her, encouraging her, doing anything I can to serve her and make her flourish.

job 22-37 (debate round 3)

job

Job's friends and Elihu spend ages talking about how God is so far above us, how He is always right, always just and how dare we presume to know better than Him. That's all correct. So why are they so adamant that Job must have sinned to recieve this "punishment". They don't seem to be able to accept that not everything God does is logical or explainable to us. And we shouldn't expect it to be... but we can be confident that He knows what He is doing!

Ephesians 4

chapterfour

We should make every effort to acheive unity, but unity should not become the ultimate goal. Our ultimate goal is Jesus, and if compromise is needed to acheive unity - following Jesus needs to come first.

I don't want to be someone who is tossed back and forth with any type of teaching. everything needs to be tested against the bible. I can remember not that long ago when I wasn't particularly bothered about biblical authority! The Bible is the bench mark which everything else needs to be held up to.

No "unwholesome talk" should be coming out of my mouth, but not only that, encouragment should be coming out of my mouth. I might not be shanning people out, but I rarely encourage anyone which isn't really good enough.

Job 15-21 (debate round 2)

job

One of the mistakes that Job's friends are making are that they are trying to explain something that they, or Job, can't really understand - why isJob suffering.

When people are suffering and crying out to God asking why, I hope I don't follow Bildad's example and start a theological debate. There are some things we can't explain about why God does or doesn't do something and that's alright. He wouldn't be much of a God if humans could get Him all worked out. We might not understand, but we know He's in control and He knows what's best for us far better than we do.

dry bones

ezekielchapterthirtyseven

The dry bones had no hope, no desire to do anything. The only reason anything happened was because God did something. The only reason they became alive was because God spoke. Ezekiel didn't have to make them come alive, that would have been impossible, he just needed to be faithful to what God asked him to do which was to speak to those bones.

When I look around it sometimes looks hopeless, surrounded by dry bones. And when I look at myself its even worse! I do not need to try harder or find the secret formula that will make the bones come to life. I need to encounter God and hear Him speak. Only He can give life to the bones.

Epehsians 3

ephesianschapterthree

I need to be a servant of the gospel and so I need to work out what that is. Again, like in 2:10 - what are the good works that God has got for me to do?

v10 The purpose is that, through the church, the complicated, many sided wisdom of God in all its variety and innumerable aspects might now be made known. (AMP)

Why does it have to be through the church?! That makes it so much more difficult! The fact is, the many-sided aspects of God can not be revealed just through me and my own personal relationship with Him. Christianity is about community, you can’t be a lone ranger, even though I would like to be! Father, Son and Holy Spirit are in relationship with each other and, if we are not in relationships, then we are missing out on something of God. I want all I can get of God and so unfortunately that means I can’t cut myself off from others. I’ve got to be in the messy world that is living in close community.

v12 tells me that I can approach God with freedom and confidence through what Jesus has done. There's no way an unrighteous sinner like me should be able to confidently and freely approach God. But I can through Jesus.

Paul's priorities when he's praying for the Ephesians are all about their spiritual growth. My prayers shouldn't be so focused on circumstances. Paul certainly wasn't focused on his (prison).

God's love is the most important thing. I need to be rooted in it and understand how big it is. When I take my focus off God's great love for me that was shown by Jesus' death, I've got my priorities wrong

God can do immeasurably more than I can ask or imagine. I need to raise my puny expectations of Him a bit!

Job 3-14 (debate round 1)

job

all four of them talk about how powerful God is and how holy/righteous He is. None of that is disputed. The difference is that his friends claim that Job's suffering must be occuring because of some sin. Job knows that His suffering is being allowed by God, and he doesn't question God's right to do it, he just doesn't understand why, and that's what he's wondering out loud about.

Ephesians 2

ephesianschaptertwo




Without Jesus I am:

• dead in sin
• disobediant
• following the devil
• living for my sinful nature
• an object of God's wrath

Through Jesus I am:

• alive
• saved by grace
• seated with Jesus in the heavenly realms!

v10 - what are the good works God has got for me to do? Why waste my time doing anything else?

v11-22 Reconciliation: Jesus brought it between Jews and Gentiles and can do it between anyone today.

Job 1-2 (prologue)

chapter one

v1 Job is described as:

• blameless - the word used (tam) literally translates as perfect, used to describe the animals without blemish needed for sacrifice. When it's used to describe humans does it actually mean sinless and pefect? because surely thats impossible. either way, obvioulsy Job was a man of integrity in his relationship with God.


• upright - following God's laws


• God fearing - "the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom" (psalm 110:10, proverbs 9:10, proverbs 15:33)


• evil-shunning - again, integrity

v4-5 were job's children party animals? Job's sacrifices were general sacrifices of atonement, not necessarily to do with specific sins, but its obvious that he took his family's relationship with God very seriously.

v20-21 At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised."

This is absolutely amazing. He's just lost pretty much everything including his children, he's obviously gutted about it (tearing robes, shaving head) but he worships God. I think I know what God should or shouldn't be doing/giving to me. But God gives and takes away and who am I to think I know better? Why are more of my prayers about God resolving specific situations than about praising Jesus for who He is? This scene shows why God thinks so much of Job in the first place, He is totally loyal.

chapter two

v11-13 I tend to always think of Job's friends as not really good friends because of what happens later in the book but its obvious from this that they do care for him. Sitting in silence with someone for 7 days to share their grief is hardcore.