One of the most exiting discoveries of the Christian walk has to be that God has a purpose for your life. It doesn’t matter what went on before because however, washed up or useless you feel God has a purpose.

It gets even better because God then equips you with the gifts you need for that purpose. In Ephesians 4 v 12 we read:

for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry

The word equipping is used to describe a making fit, making fully qualified for service, ultimately it means “setting a bone” as in surgery. In other words it is recovering your wholeness so that you will be operating fully.

Isn’t that exciting. God will equip you to do whatever He calls you to do. Answer His call.

The strength of the Christian lies not in obeying outward laws but in inward character.

For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His spirit in the inner man.

Ephesians 3 14-16

Pray for me and pray for each other, that we might be strengthened by God’s spirit to have inner character.

Have you ever realised that peace has two functions? We probably all think about and know one function, that of causing to cease (to bring an end to hostility). But what about an equally important part of “to be united with”? Do we place one above the other. Have we forgotten then when neighbours fight, stopping it is one thing, but to keep it stopped we need to unite those neighbours?

The peace of the Lord be with you.

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2 v 10

God’s will has a purpose, a purpose God prepared beforehand. Before conversion, blown and tossed about by the wind, after conversion, balance, symmetry and order.

Discover your purpose. And find that order.

In Ephesians (1 v 18) we come across this verse:

I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened

I read and re-read this. It seems to suggest that we all have eyes of our hearts but in order to perceive what God is doing we need these enlightened. The verse goes on to say “That you may know the hope to which he has called you”.

I love this expression the “eyes of the heart”. We seem to live in a very heady society, bent on finding knowledge and trying to work everything out. It is a shame that the heart doesn’t get much of a look in. The heart is often confined to some romantic area but we forget the football player who instinctively knows where to pass the ball, surely that is heart. And this is where God heads to our heart. It is in the eyes of heart that we will know the hope to which God has called us.

Rich

P.S. An interesting aside has arisen for me. I want to investigate the prayers of St Paul. They seem so positive. Paul doesn’t seem to pray for the things we are so interested in praying for. Binding up the devil, revival, blessings, etc. That will be done at some point soon. The prayers of St Paul.