Wisdom Encouragement

Friday, August 28th, 2020

He loves you with an everlasting love, He is all-powerful, that with Him all things are possible.  I believe that you want to be transformed.
Che Ahn

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Hi, I am Che Ahn, senior pastor of Harvest Rock Church in Pasadena, CA. This is God Today.  I was really meditating on Ephesians 1, I love the book of Ephesians.  It is the only book that there is actually no correction, there are just words of encouragement.  And what is really amazing is that in Acts 19, arguably, Paul had the greatest revival in all his ministry in the city of Ephesus.  We see how he went from Corinth in Acts 18 to Ephesus chapter 19.  And the Bible says that he ended up staying 3 years in Ephesus.  

 

What is remarkable is that to give you a contrast, he spent only three weeks in Thessalonica, but he spent 3 years in Ephesus.  Why?  A massive revival broke out.  We see how all of these have heard the Gospel as he used Ephesus as an apostolic base.  What would be Asia today, would be Turkey, modern-day Turkey today, and yet we see how God did extraordinary miracles through the apostle Paul.  We see how handkerchiefs, pieces of clothing were taken from his body and given to the sick and demonized, and they were delivered.

 

I want to look at Ephesians and there is so much meat here.  One of my favorite verses is in verse 3, for example.  “Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places.”  I hope you follow me and look up Ephesians 1:3.  Please underscore every spiritual blessing.  It says, “ it is in the Heavenly places”.  So we have to pull down to Earth by faith.  I do feel like Heaven and Earth overlap and we have been praying, of course, the prayer that Jesus taught us in Matthew 6, for 2000 years. “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.”  That is in verse 10 of Matthew 6.

 

Do we really believe Heaven to invade Earth?  By the way, it is not talking about going to Heaven, it is talking about bringing Heaven down to Earth.  Of course, we have eternal life.  The Bible says, “He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing.”  Healing, joy, peace.  Some of you are fighting depression, some of you are fighting anxiety, and God says that the Kingdom of God is not meat or drink, Romans 14:17, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.  

 

He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places.  That is our inheritance. And later on, Paul prays we would know the riches of our inheritance in Christ Jesus. But that is one verse. I want to move down to verse 17. I want to talk about the prayer Paul prays.

 

And he prays that the Spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of God will come upon us.  See, He came into a dimension and the work in Ephesus, in Acts 19, where he realized your knowledge of God would determine your destiny and how far you go, and the fruitfulness you will see in your ministry.  For example, if you have a perception that God is a God who is mean, who is out to get everyone, then obviously your theology is going to impact the way you practice and what you preach.  But if you really believe that God is good or God is love, as the Bible says, then that is going to impact the way you do ministry.

 

So, Paul realized the importance even in Philippians 3, he says at the end of his life, while he is in prison, with death by execution imminent and, by the way, we know that he was beheaded by Nero around 55 or 56 A.D.  So, as he is in prison, he says, “I want to know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of the suffering being conformed to His death.”

 

I want to pray that for you.  I want to pray that the Spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of Him, the knowledge of God. A.W. Tozer says our worship rises or is lowered by our understanding of who God is.  When you know He is a loving God, He loves you with an everlasting love, He is all-powerful, that with Him all things are possible.  I believe that you want to be transformed.  And of course, it is progressive, because it is all about intimacy. That word knowledge is all about intimacy as a husband knows his wife.

 

So, He wants you to get closer, and we can get more intimate every day with Jesus Christ.  Father, I pray for those watching God Today.  I pray for the Spirit of wisdom and revelation of the knowledge of God to come upon you that you would have a revelation of His nature and character that would transform your life and transform your world.  In Jesus’ mighty name.  Amen.