Thoughts on Ephesians

I have been studying Ephesians for the last few months. I have been reading all I can on the history of the area, reading all the commentaries I can on the scriptures, and listening to all the messages I can that are preached on the subject. As a result I have been speaking on Ephesians since the beginning of the school year, and I plan on going until December. I was specifically thinking about this verse and marriage today:

When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.
Ephesians 3:14-21

Paul prays this prayer for the Ephesian people. I have been praying this prayer for our church and youth ministry as well. I sense the passion Paul is speaking with here as he makes this prayer. Why is he so passionate about this section? This is important, if you don't know this information, you don't really know God (I'm not talking salvation). Paul is passionate about people knowing how high, how deep, how long God's love really is. When you come to the realization that God is the best there is, you can live fully for Him.

When you come to a realization that God is all you have and God is all you need, you can love Him. When you come to the realization that God is better than drugs, sex, money, career, family, marriage, food, shopping, gadgets, toys, books, vacations, television, video games, sports, movies, church, government, politics, news, school, information, children, (you get the idea) then God is all you need.

If, in an instance, you have a choice between two things, engaging God in some form of spiritual activity, or satisfying physical things, and we pick satisfying the physical consistently, we are either lacking the knowledge of what the spiritual activity is for, or we actually believe that the physical activity is BETTER than engaging God. Both result in the same thing, death of the soul. I think that in America, our problem is not a lack of anything, but an overabundance of distractions that kill the soul.

I said that I was thinking of how this verse pertains to marriage. I believe that marriage is a picture of what heaven is like, marriage is a picture of our relationship with God. But if marriage can be a picture of heaven, than it can also be a picture of Hell. I think that the state of a marriage is mostly based upon the man. God made us men to lead in the marriage. Now some women femi-nazis get all frazzled about this idea. But if you look at a passage in Corinthians, you see that God loves to use foolish things. My self-esteem just took a leap off a building.

Well anyways, God chooses to use the man to lead the marriage, Satan then chooses to get in the way and make the man passive. That is the soul of the issue in marriage today. I think that if men would actually BE who God created them to be, the divorce epidemic would end. If men would love their wives as Christ loves us, wives everywhere would be inspired to be who God created them to be. How much did Christ love the church? Many say, well he died for it, yes, but I take it a step further, HE LET HER KILL HIM. Whoa. Am I to love my wife to the point of letting her kill me? Well in a way. You are to give your life to her so that you can present her to God pure.

We are to be the protector of our wives and families. We are to be the active pursuer and lover of our wife, the active defender of our families. We are not to be passive. Many men are passive in different ways, they sit in front of a television and call it family time, or they can be busy, busy, busy at work and ignore their families that way. Either way results in the same thing, a passive man who does not inspire his wife to pursue him or God.

Think about how we spend our time, being entertained or seeking entertainment. What is the focal point of most families homes? The "Entertainment Center." Our souls are dead because we would rather ignore and be distracted from the deep issues, questions, and problems that plague us. We would rather ignore the fact that our souls are starving than do something about it, because it is easier. It is so much easier to sit in front of a television and watch something, and call it family time, than to interact with and play with and get to know our children. It is so much easier to get busy, and stay busy with our work, than it is to sit and eat a meal with our families and talk.

I am not preaching "Kill your television" so much as I am asking you, what do you use it for? Is it to keep you distracted, is it because it is easier? Take the test, turn it off for an evening and see what happens. If you don't know what to do with yourself or your family, there is a problem, and you can do one of two things, turn the tv back on and pretend that there is nothing wrong and keep yourself distracted, OR fix things. If you find that you have a wonderful time together, great, why not do it more often?

Let’s inspire, Let’s Lead.