January 15, 2024
TODAY’S SCRIPTURE READING:
“As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” (Ephesians 4.1-6)
TODAY’S REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:
Remembering Paul is writing to the Ephesian community of faith in Christ from prison, his letter takes on tremendous significance. While Paul has been in prison many times and suffered numerous challenges against his person, his focus remains on his one true identity. Paul knows of his earthly history as the son of a Roman and a Jew. He was well educated in the arts and in theology under the tutelage of Gamilel, a respected rabbi of rabbis in Israel. As a Pharisee, he had the support of the Temple leadership to enact judgment as well as execution over those who opposed them, apart from Rome, of course. He was a respected man in some circles and a feared one in others. But, his identity changed as did his calling when he was met on the Damascus Road by the vision of the Resurrected Christ of God. Now, Paul, the former Saul of Tarsus, was one whose life was given to the service of Jesus the Christ. His death sentence because of sin enhanced by the self-righteousness of the Pharisees was commuted. He was made a free man of grace who then surrendered his own life to that of the Judge, Jury and Executioner of all. His sentence was one that no law of man could change. No law of the Temple could stand against him because he was a servant of the Christ, the long-awaited Messiah. In that identity, he had found true peace, true contentment, true resolve, true hope, true faith and true meaning. This was the same that he desired for all who would consider making their profession of faith in Jesus as the Christ. And it was just a profession of “words” mind you. It had become his true profession by which his life was supported. It was his life’s work. He believed it should be the same for all believers.
This, I believe, is that “hope” to which Paul declared the Ephesian believers were called to. Their identity was as a body of believers infused with the power of the Holy Spirit. It was the identity of being “a priesthood of all believers” bound with the commissioning of the gospel and attired with the full armor of God. The urging of others to lead in worship, service and the service of worship was for Paul the sincerest form of faithfulness to the One who called them into the newness of life. It mattered not whether they were male or female, slave or free, Jew or Gentile or of any ethnicity at that point. The deciding identity was those who worshipped in spirit and in truth. Their true identity was one of the kingdom reality that now empowered them in their calling to be disciples of Christ in the world. We might say it was their “trump,” and I do not mean former President Donald Trump, identity; their “go to” identity. In the world, they also had identities which were defined by gender, ethnicity, theology, economics and sociology. Paul often used the fact that he was a Roman citizen to help in spreading the gospel when either Romans, Jews or others challenged his authority to do so. He was under command by the head of the body of faith who is Jesus the Christ. He is connected to others in the worship, service and service of worship by which the gospel is made known as they, too, share in the calling to which they had been called. Their calling in the Spirit was based on their gifts, their fruit, their life experience and their faith in Jesus whom they called the Christ of God. It is the Holy Spirit of God which served as their “spiritual life blood” surging through their bodies with the divine DNA of mission, purpose and identity as given by God. They, like Paul, were bondservants of the greatest Master of all life, He who came to serve and not be served. What was their service, and ours even today, but to share the hope of eternal life and an eternal abiding place in God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven. All others purposes and processes were to be filtered through that one hope. It defined who they were, what they did and ultimately whose they were. It is meant to define us today as well. Does it?
TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:
Father, before we were conceived in the womb, You had already formed us in Your love and by Your Spirit spoke us into being. Each one of us is blessed with the opportunity of doing right, being good and producing the fruit of the Spirit so that others may be fed the truth of that same love so that the two will become one. It is our soul’s sincere desire to embrace the oneness You have in mind that we would know that we are Your people and that You are our God. Lead us in that discovery of the truth and the manifestation of that love for us all. In Jesus’ name, we pray. AMEN.
Mighty Ones In His Service 