Eph 1:8-13 - Understanding of God's WIll. Wisdom to Live it Out.

Ready for more spiritual blessings in the epistle to the Ephesians?

The second set of spiritual blessings.

• Gives us wisdom and insight (1:8)
• Made known to us His will (1:9)
• Obtained an inheritance (1:11)
• Sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of promise (1:13)

God gives us wisdom and understanding to know His WILL which is that Christ will bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth. How do we know God's will? Through His Word. Hence, the second set of spiritual blessing centres in around understanding the Word of God.

God gives us understanding. He also gives us wisdom to understand His word enough that we can obey it and live it out in the many details of our lives. In other words, to APPLY it. To be able to apply God's word, we need to be reminded of it enough such that we can REMEMBER it when a situation in our lives requires the need for it. Often Christians keep talking about applying God's word when they are not interested in understanding it and remembering it. How then do we apply it?

Hence, let us READ, UNDERSTAND, REMEMBER, APPLY. By man's own intelligence, God's word is but foolishness to him (1 Cor 1-2). Even Christians sometimes feel that God's Word is irrelevant to him, is an embarrassment to him before friends/family, that he cannot live it out in his life. Do you feel so? If yes, God's Word is but foolishness to you, for you belong to the world. But to His children, He gives them wisdom and insight to understand it enough that it can be brought to reality in their lives.

And from where does a man gain the ability to apply understand God's word? Through the Holy Spirit sealed in us (1:13) which reminds us not to live by the flesh, but live by the Spirit. Not to sow to the flesh, but to sow to the spirit. Not to bear the rotten fruits of the flesh, but to bear the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5-6). It rebukes us and reminds us the teachings of Christ (Jhn 14, 16).

This is later further elaborated by Paul in Eph 1:17 " that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him."

In the next article, we will consider the understanding of God's will that Christ will bring all things to unity.