Grace, Faith, Love, Oh My! A Study on Ephesians One

I wanted to open my blog by beginning with the Word of God! Ephesians (surprise) is newly my favorite book of the Bible, so I found it appropriate to dive deep into this rich book of the Bible, and unpack it chapter by chapter. I will be using ESV for all the Bible studies, but all translations are welcome! I sometimes even find it beneficial to look at multiple translations to understand the passage as best as I can.

Before diving in, I would love to explain why Ephesians has become my favorite book of the Bible. During my mission trip to Albania (a testimony I will be sharing in later blogs!), we mainly focused on Ephesians as a way to prepare our hearts and receive joy. Because of this, Ephesians holds a very special place in my heart. When I felt exhausted beyond measure, when I felt hopeless that we had traveled all that way for nothing, when I felt spiritually defeated, the Spirit working through the book of Ephesians empowered me. Without the encouragement Paul left in his letter to the Ephesians, I think I would have crumbled in fear, sadness, worry, doubt, and exhaustion. Here are just some fun pictures from Albania of us studying Ephesians!

I was able to enjoy the AMAZING Albania cappuccino's while studying Ephesians!

I always find it extremely helpful to know a bit of background before fully studying a new book of the Bible. I think it gives us great context on who is writing, where they are, and how best to use that knowledge as we unpack that book of the Bible. The Apostle Paul is the writer of Ephesians and is writing to the Church of Ephesus. Paul spent a good bit of his time teaching at Ephesus. At the time Paul is writing the book of Ephesians, he is imprisoned in Rome writing letters. We see this often as Paul begins almost every chapter in Ephesians by saying "I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles..." (3:1). Paul addresses the readers like this because he is making it known that he is imprisoned because he was obedient to the Lord, and was living out a life for Jesus when he became imprisoned. 

So let's go into this study together with open hearts and ears to be inclined to what the Spirit has for us! If you would like to follow along, please read Ephesians 1:1-23, which will take us through the entire first chapter. From there, we will then break the passage down. Y'all, if I could just take a moment to say that this first chapter IS IT! If you are feeling overwhelmed, unsure, defeated, lost, confused, or pessimistic, THIS is the passage for you! 

Verses 1-2: Starting off, Paul is simply introducing himself and addressing who he is writing to (Ephesus).  You will notice in the beginning of MANY of Paul's letters he begins with greeting with grace to the people and peace from God. When I noticed this theme through Paul's letters, it sparked my interest because how loving is it to start a conversation or letter with both words of grace and peace from God? It's pretty cool that Paul begins his letters to this church with grace and peace. He is setting an example and loving them well from the very beginning. 

Verses 3-4: These two verses start the spiritual blessing. It begins with praising God for the numerous spiritual blessings we receive out of His love. Verse 4 goes into depth on this spiritual blessing because we are CHOSEN before creation, before our parents even thought of us, our Heavenly Father KNEW US, LOVED US, CHOSE US. Even though He knew we would sin and hurt Him, He counted us holy and blameless in Him. But don't get this mixed up, we are not simply holy and blameless, but ONLY in Christ. He has already called all of us to be this, but we have to walk into that light. 

Verses 5-6: It starts with IN LOVE. Wow. I don't know about yall, but it is so comforting to know my God does these things in love. He chose us before time to love us and take us all as sons and daughters. That's A LOT of kids to take on. He adopted us knowing that we would make the same mistake a million times (that's so annoying when your kids do it right?), hurt Him so deeply when we reject Him, and knowing we could not fully love Him the way He loves us. His will is for Him to save us, adopt us, and love us. We live and praise because of His GRACE! This grace is in Jesus, and His blood poured out sacrifice, love, and grace. 

Verses 7-10: These verses truly are a description of salvation. It lays it out exactly how it is. His blood physically and brutally poured out on the cross, but His blood also ran like a never-ending river of grace that covered all the impurities. Forgiveness is who Jesus is. He did not HAVE to forgive, he sacrificed Himself to give out of unconditional love. These verses GET ME because the amount of grace given out of love is CRAZY. The amount of times I have withheld grace because I thought that was more loving is insane. It is so convicting for me personally that love and grace go hand and hand. The mystery that Paul talks about in verse 9, refers to the plan of God to send Jesus to save us all from ourselves. God laid everything out perfectly to all come back to Him. To unite both heaven and earth back to Him because both are His anyway. 

Verses 11-14: Paul introduces us to the power of the Holy Spirit. In 13, we see that hearing the word of God and believing it opens up our hearts to be sealed with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes into us WHEN we accept Jesus. Paul also describes the Holy Spirit as our way of connecting us to Jesus until we meet Jesus for ourselves. 

Verses 15-19: The next section is Paul uplifting the people at Ephesus and encouraging them before he goes into depth in the rest of his letters of specific encouragement. Paul has heard of the Ephesians' faith and thanked them for their faith. I love that Paul tells them exactly what he is praying for them for. How often do we tell our friends "Oh, I'm so sorry, I'm praying for you!", but how often do we act on that? I say this because I fall short in this! I would encourage you all to tell your friends what you are SPECIFICALLY praying for for them! This speaks life into your friends. You have the POWER of prayer simply with your words. Speak life into them, speak power into them, speak the name of Jesus over them! Because our words matter. 

Verses 20-23: Paul is reminding the believers of how GREAT our GOD IS! He is God over all creation, He is here now, He is God of the Heavens, He is God of life after death. The church is the body of Christ. It is Christ using a body of believers as a vessel to our broken world. The last sentence confused me at first but it just took me a minute to connect all the dots. The church is the body of Christ that is filled with Christ so that Jesus overflows into the world. Christ is with the church, within the church, and overflowing from the church.

Bottom line, Ephesians is powerful! And I would suggest reading and studying Ephesians, and using the power and encouragement from it to motivate your heart. We NEED encouragement. And how awesome is it that we get to simply open a book FULL of love and encouragment left by a loving God??? I would seriously love to be praying for you all, and over your prayer requests, please feel free to message or even comment below prayer requests so that we can be praying as a whole!

Prayer is Powerful!