Today’s chapter is Ephesians 1

Tom writes:

This is a stonking book. While Galatians hammered in on Jesus being the only one to guarantee our freedom now, Ephesians sticks its finger under our chin and tilts our face up higher. We gaze in wonder at our future inheritance and the glorious majesty of the heavenly realms. In that celestial view we discern the vocation for the church right now. We start by being reminded that these heavenly realms are not just a future destination - they have always existed - while Julius was Caesar, while dinosaurs ate cave men and even when wooden church pews were a newfangled craze. And we find that our names have been written there - in those glorious realms - since before the dawn of time. These heavenly realms don’t quite sit in parallel to our realm but engulf it and sit over it, always real, always majestic, always rumbling and effervescing with the glorious promise of hope. These heavenly realms have always been fingerprinting the world. But there will be a day - when the times have reached fulfilment - when the heavenly and the earthly will completely become one, under the headship of Christ. That is when our calling - and the creation’s calling - will be “filled up”; will have done all it is meant to do.

On that day we will become staggeringly holy. On that day we will be completely blameless in His sight and in the sight of all mankind. On that day every nugget and ruffle of creation will be fully and utterly caught up into perfection, into faultless praise of the great King who made it and perfects it and satisfies it in every imaginable way. And we have a foretaste of this day sitting within us now. The Spirit is a deposit paid to us on the point of faith. He is a portion of that future wonder that we can enjoy and experience and be reassured by right now. The Spirit brings that staggering holiness, that unimaginable power and shocking joy and injects it into our current reality. So next time we pray “Come Holy Spirit”, let’s remember who we are talking to. Before we utter those precious, life-shifting words, let’s take a moment to stretch wide our expectations and ready ourselves to taste hope. For when the Spirit comes He fills us with God’s fullness and He does it in every way.

Question for reflection

How big is your vision of the vocation of God’s church?

Ephesians 1 - Thursday 4th July