What am I doing in the meantime, Lord? Hoping…that’s what I’m doing…hoping! Psalm 39:7 THE MESSAGE.

{May God} give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints. Ephesians 1:17-18 ESV.

From My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers today: “His Birth and Our New Birth “‘Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,’ which is translated, ‘God with us.’” Matthew 1:23. His Birth in History, “…that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). Jesus Christ was born into this world, not from it. He did not emerge out of history; He came into history from the outside. Jesus Christ is not the best human being the human race can boast of – He is a Being for whom the human race can take no credit at all. He is not man becoming God, but God Incarnate – God coming into human flesh from outside it. His life is the highest and the holiest entering through the most humble of doors. Our Lord’s birth was an advent – the appearance of God in human form. His Birth in Me. “My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you” (Galatians 4:19). Just as our Lord came into human history from outside it, He must also come into me from outside. Have I allowed my personal human life to become a “Bethlehem” for the Son of God? I cannot enter the realm of the kingdom of God unless I am born again from above by a birth totally unlike physical birth. “You must be born again” (John 3:7). This is not a command, but a fact based on the authority of God. The evidence of the new birth is that I yield myself so completely to God that “Christ is formed” in me. And once “Christ is formed” in me, His nature immediately begins to work through me. God Evident in the Flesh. This is what is made so profoundly possible for you and for me through the redemption of man by Jesus Christ.”

Let this continue to flow as we read our new chapter, Ephesians 1. In the introduction it said it was written by Paul at Rome between AD 60 and 64. In the notation below it noted that three early manuscripts do not contain at Ephesus in the first verse. Whether to Ephesus, Laodicea, Rome, or indeed, to any of the churches all over the world then and now and into eternity…that will come to all the hearts of His children willing to be loved by Him. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are at Ephesus and who are faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be in the praise of His glory. In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation – having also believed – you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory. For this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you and your love for all the saints, do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

We could sit with this chapter forever and it is so big and we are so small. His Love is bigger than anything we can comprehend fully now. I love His patience as He works in hearts busy, resistant, wounded, fragile. I love that He created everything that is, including so many of us, numbers I can’t begin to comprehend. How could we understand then or now what happened on that Holy Night so long ago? But He knows! Can we sit with Him in quiet and let His Love begin its needed work in us? This is so big…and we are so loved. Thank You, Creator God, for so great a Love!