“In Him…”

 

Sunday, April 25th, 2021

by Ken Pullen

ACP — A Crooked Path

 

How many professing to be a Christian, with their shiny crucifixes perched on their throat or chest, are truly in Him and He in them?

How many know what it means to be truly transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit and made into a new creature. Renewed of mind and spirit. To be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, to be a true child of God?

The world practicing godlessness, and wallowing in paganism and darkness claims everyone is a child of God. They are wrong. They are in truth children of darkness, children of disobedience. They are children of the devil. Not God.

Do you know what it means to be in Him and He in you?

I’ve been told I’m too harsh, too hard. Not touchy-feely soft enough. Well, there is enough complacency, enough words being spoken or written to appease and make people feel good. That isn’t what turning to Jesus, taking up the cross daily, and living a Christian life, a Bible-based life is or means. There is far too much acceptance, tolerance, and gravitating to what the world offers up that is taken in by those professing to be “Christian.” The path to heaven isn’t littered with the crumbs of folks who have their cake and eat it too. Having things their way rather than God’s way. They lower God or eliminate God rather than bowing, submitting, obeying, and living for Christ, by Christ, with Christ and they in Him.

Hard? Hurtful? Please, no. It’s love and concern for the spiritual health of others. I do not know and most likely never will. Far too many are too soft, too accommodating of the unsound teachings, the worldly teachings, and tolerant of sin. Tolerant of adopting those things into their lives that go against God and His Word.

The Following 14 verses are among the most important and to the heart words in the New Testament. To true believers. And to the unbelieving? The mockers, the scoffers, those reveling in blindness as they stumble about in darkness professing to be enlightened?

If only those would turn from the darkness and walk truly towards and into the Truth, the Way, the Light leading to Life — confessing their sin, repenting, and asking the Lord to give them His grace and in their belief, even if only the size of a mustard seed, to have FAITH to receive the FREE GIFT OF GRACE from God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. It isn’t about what you do, how hard you try, you deluding yourself you’re a “good person” and by being a “good person” (according to your definition, not God’s, for there is no such a person as a “good person” as we’re all sinners in need of redemption and saving)

Read the following 14 verses. Deeply read them. Perhaps as never before. And if like many, most professing to be a Christian yet they are not fluent in the Scripture, they do not read the Bible regularly, daily, or even once a week those need to be the ones to dive the deepest and stay the longest. Search out how many times “in him,” or “in Christ” appear in the 14 verses below and take to heart the context and depth of the following words.

And to those unbelieving that just happen to find themselves here? Read what the apostle Paul wrote to a church in Ephesus. And continue to seek and know what it means to understand and live the following words. What it means to have Christ in oneself and for a person to be “In Him.”

To those with the shiny or dull or made of whatever material cross around your neck? Thinking, telling others you’re a Christian? Perhaps you need to read and take to heart even greater than the unbeliever…believe it or not…

In Him is everything.

In Him is life.

Without Him is death. Darkness. Confusion. Pain that never stops. Restlessness.

With Him, there is a peace, a comfort, a KNOWING unlike anything imaginable by the mind outside of being in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit to change a heart, a mind, a way of living.

 

Greeting

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,

To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Spiritual Blessings in Christ

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

Ephesians 1:1-14 — English Standard Version