Essays in Ephesians #5

In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you,   Ephesians 1: 13 – 16a ESV

Paul’s deeply felt gratitude for the faith and love of believers bubbles over. When the Holy Spirit brings life to his words, I bubble up with thanksgiving too. You can read my praise and prayer below and join your gratitude to mine, but better than that, why not reflect on Paul’s words in Ephesian and take a moment or two to thank the Lord for His faith and love in you and yours.

THANK YOU, FATHER, for Your Holy Spirit. Help us receive full measure of His life as Your guarantee of freedom from sin, self and destruction. Give us faith to choose His  life above our own. Help us experience His activity in and through us.  Thank You, Jesus, for giving Yourself  for us, first to die for us, and now to live in and through us. Thank You for love that marks us as your own and would not let us go.

THANK YOU, HOLY SPIRIT, for working within us to change us, to make us more like Jesus. Thank You for the transformation that awaits our bodies at death. Thank You Holy Spirit for pouring into us divine love, the very love of Your own eternal nature, the very love of our Father for His Son, Jesus Christ, the love that flowed through the life-blood Jesus gave for us.

THANK YOU, LORD JESUS, that faith in You imparts Your Holy Spirit and opens our eyes to Your love for all. Thank you that Your love is not like our natural love that requires others to qualify for it, or that seeks attraction or worth before loving. Your true love requires no return, it wants no self-satisfaction; it seeks no pleasure but Your Father’s approval. Thank You for the amazing miracle of Divine holy, constant, unchanging love. Bring Your love to life within us; gives us Your prayers, Your Words, Your acts of kindness and mercy. Sensitize and educate our consciences to agree with You.

Holy Spirit, break us open to receive more of this love of God in Christ; this love that seeks to do good for all and would harm no one; this love that willingly serves the unlovely—this love that loves others as You first loved us, before we knew Your name. Holy Spirit build Your fires within us, stir our hearts to act from sincere motives with good deeds of love for one another. How unworthy we all are, without exception, we are unworthy of Your gifts of love.

Help us to see Jesus—

See, from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down;
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown.
. . . Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

from “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” text by Isaac Watts