ISSL Reflections November 20 2022 Ephesians 2:1–10 Post 3

VII.
Open your eyes – Be on the lookout for the aliveness spoken of here.

VIII.
Ephesians 2:1-10 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, doing the will of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else, but God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ —by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God — not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we may walk in them.

IX.
Who do you know that is “made alive together with Christ … it is the gift of God … we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works…

The phrase “the gift that keeps on giving” has been used in commercials for everything from audio equipment, to cameras, to kitchen appliances, to chocolate.

But maybe the “gift of God” mentioned in Ephesians is the ultimate “gift that keeps on giving.”

If we follow, Paul it is the gift of a transformed life and a gift that eventuates in shared “good works.”

How do you notice in your own life you have been “made alive together with Christ”?

charles
{ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est}


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