EPHESIANS 3 RELOADED

This is real stuff you know. It is so real to me that I was willing to take prison for it, even take a bullet for it if I have to. It is my mission to make God’s mysteries known, plain and simple, accessible to everyone. In case you hadn’t figured it out yet – God has a plan! In the past it was hidden like a treasure in the deepest sea, but now it is now being shown to you, clear as crystal.

The plan is this: Everyone gets the chance to be one of God’s children. Everyone gets an equal share in the inheritance –the good stuff usually reserved for the posh or the privileged. If we were God’s body, then every part would be connected together, legs, arms and all, because we are connected to Jesus by the heart.

I tell you what, I feel like the luckiest guy in the world, because I get to spread this good news everywhere! I absolutely love telling you about the endless possibilities that exist for you, now you have Jesus in your life. It feels like I have been let in on an awesome secret, and I can finally let it out!

God wants to show you off to the world, together with all his other children. Some people will call you “church”, others will simply call you “family”. But everyone will see how special God is, because of how special he has made you. Even the angels, demons and the things you can’t even see with your eyes, will not believe their eyes, when they see how loving and wise God has been with you.

So come on, don’t worry, step right up and come on in – God has a warm welcome for you, right now. You can be close to God anytime you want, that’s exactly why Jesus died for you!

Excuse me, but I am about to go nuts again. It just gets better and better. I can’t even stand up anymore when I really think about it. I simply have to fall to my knees and pray. But I don’t pray for myself, I always pray for you. I pray you will be super strong on the inside, when you realise how strong and powerful God is. I pray Jesus will feel completely at home in your life – with every room in your heart clean and ready to be occupied by God.

But most of all I pray you will get it into your head and your heart, just how loved you are. I pray you will understand how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. Let yourself sink into that love, lose yourself completely in something that you will never fully understand, but will spend eternity enjoying and experiencing forever. Lots of people in this world want to be powerful, but I know you just want to be loved. And this love will help you see how much power that there truly is. It is a power, just waiting to be used for the good of everyone; by the person who has figured out that God thinks they are amazing.

I think it is time to take a moment again to say just how brilliant God is. He is amazing, and his power in our lives will take us in new directions, give us new ideas and help us succeed in new ways of living that we could never have asked for or even dared to dream about in and beyond our wildest imagination. God rocks!

EPHESIANS 2 RELOADED

Let’s think for a minute about the ways things used to be. In the past you were totally switched off to God and you were controlled by anything and everything around you. You always went with the crowd. You never went against the flow because you were so scared inside.If you are honest, you were pretty selfish and thought only about yourself. It didn’t matter about anyone else and because of your wrong thoughts, actions and choices you made a right mess of your life.

This mess should have meant that God would look at you and be mad. He should have been disappointed and you should have been ashamed. But it wasn’t like that at all. Even though you were broken inside, it was God’s amazing love that fixed you right up. We deserved the worse, but God has given us the best instead. It is as if we were dead and God has given us the kiss of life.But it doesn’t end there! God loved us just the way we are.

But he didn’t leave us that way.

He pulled us out of our mess, cleaned us up and his love made us feel so high that we could never ever stoop down low again. He did this because he wanted to show the whole world how kind he really was. The real point is this. God has done all this – not you. You didn’t earn this one bit, so you shouldn’t ever be prideful, but you can always be thankful. We simply need to be grateful that God has made us such a masterpiece. Your life is like a work of art, and all the good things you will do will help paint an amazing picture for the world to see how great our God really is.

Some people think they are better than others. Some people think that if they try harder God will love them more. But the truth is that we are all the same. We all messed up and we all need God’s love to bring us close to God. Do you really think you are good enough to do it on your own? No matter how good or how bad we try– it all comes back to God’s efforts, not ours. The wonder of it all is that it doesn’t matter if you are short, tall, fat, thin, black or white – all of us have a chance to know God as a Father. We can all be close to God.

If you have ever felt excluded, insignificant or insecure then now is the time to realise that you have been included in something amazing. You are not alone anymore. You are like a piece in a puzzle. You are like a brick in a house. And this is a house that God lives in, a house where you can experience true family life, and a place you can feel at home.

EPHESIANS 1 RELOADED

My name is Paul and God thought it would be a good idea for me to write to everyone who calls themselves a Christian and remind them about how great it is to know that God loves us like a Father. In a world that sometimes feels so unsafe, this can help you and I to be at peace.

I don’t know if you realise this, but we have a Father in heaven who has given us so many good things, it is a bit like being given a blank cheque and told to write in any amount we need, any time we need it.

What kind of good things has God given us? Well, first of all he has created you and given you life. You are alive! God designed you and me from the very beginning of time, even before he sat down to decide what the world would be like. Before any trees, rivers or mountains, God thought about you. And he loved you then like he loves you now.

And God didn’t stop there. When God made you, he didn’t just want you to be his friend. He wanted you to be his Child. What would it be like to get a completely fresh start, to be able to start again, like the whole world was made new? This is the kind of forgiveness God offers us when we trust in what Jesus has done.

Because of what Jesus has done on the cross, God has made a way for you to be his special child, perfect in his eyes – totally forgiven and totally free. You are all his number one kid!

God’s generosity is something we don’t deserve at all, but he gives it to us anyway. It is God’s cleverness, not our own, which helps point us in the right direction. All you have to do is trust Him.

God has had a master plan right from the start and he really wants to share it with you. He doesn’t want his plan to be a mystery to you any longer. If you want to know what your life is all about, where you came from and where you are going, then concentrate on Jesus.

Everything you need to know about life can be found in him. Everything that happened in history and everything that will happen in the future will all focus on Jesus. Jesus will transform everything for the better.

There are good plans that God has for this world and there are good plans he has for you. You are not a mistake. You are not an accident. You are not some helpless, worthless, insignificant dot floating through life. You are chosen by God. You were chosen for a purpose. You were born to be part of something bigger than yourself.

When you prayed and asked God to come into your life, it was for so much more than just so you could get into heaven when you die and feel a bit happier while you live. God chose you as his child, so he could work with you to help you change your world for the better.

How do you know if you are a child of God? It is about not the way you look, or who your family are, or where you live or even how many good things you have done. The proof that you belong to him is when God gives you his Holy Spirit as a guide in life. The Holy Spirit is like a gift that will bring peace instead of fear and joy instead of sadness. All you have to do is ask for it.

The more I think about what God has done for you, the more excited I become. I have been praying for you loads and asking that God would help you know God better for yourself. I have been praying that you would realise the truth about what God has created you to be. I pray you will understand just how much power God has given you to be able to do everything that you need to do in life.

If you are worrying that God may not be powerful enough to change your situation, then remember that Jesus was actually dead, and God was strong enough to bring him back to life. And not only did Jesus come back to life, but he is no longer the underdog, he is the president of the universe. Now Jesus is in charge of everything and nothing can ever challenge his title as ruler of the world. So remember – this mighty strength that God has, can also make you strong too. His power is big and God doesn’t keep it to himself. My prayer is that you will begin to believe how great this power really is for your life today.

Everyone in the church can share in God’s power because Jesus really is in control of what is going on in the world, even if it doesn’t always seem that way. We simply need to trust God that everything is going to be ok.