Dear Church Family:
I have been extremely humbled and greatly encouraged by the feedback which I have been receiving from so many of you who are not only excited, but have shared how deeply you have been blessed already, by our beginning studies together in the gospel of John. We continue to pray that it will be a lifechanging experience not only for ourselves, but for everyone in our entire Church family. There is no greater pursuit of man than to know his Creator in a personal, intimate way and to strive to walk in humble holiness before Him. Continue to pray that our time in this portion of God’s word would be used by the Lord to enable us to do just that.
Lord willing, this coming Sunday we will continue on in our look at John 1:1-18 with a particular focus on verses 14-18.
Last week we noted that Ephesians 5:18-20 was Paul’s definitive treatment about being filled with the Holy Spirit. We highlighted the first step in that process of Holy Spirit filling, namely Ephesians 5:19 – Speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music to the Lord in your heart.
This week we turn our attention to the next verse, Ephesians 5:20, which says: Giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Let me see if I understand this verse correctly. It says, “giving thanks always for EVERYTHING”. I am thinking of some of the events in our lives over the past year, such as waking up to 25-foot tree limbs broken from the top of our ficus tree floating in our backyard pool; broken water pipes, flooding, and destroyed carpet and damaged furniture? And, oh, did I mention the compressor going out on our larger AC unit? Those on top of all the other stresses and pressures of life, and God tells me to give Him thanks always for all of those? The answer is unequivocally yes. If we are truly understanding of the total sovereignty of God over every detail of our lives, and if we truly understand how good a God He really is and how His eternal love for us is bottomless, how could we not realize that these things have been allowed for a purpose?
Our good friend Robert Morgan in chapter 55 of his book, One Hundred Bible Verses Everyone Should Know by Heart, shares the following comments on this passage in Ephesians.
When our girls were younger, I enjoyed reading to them every night at bedtime. One of the books we enjoyed was about a little boy named Alexander who struggled through a day in which everything seemed to go wrong for him. Shortly afterward I had a day that started the same way. Midway through the morning, I sat down for my devotions and spontaneously wrote a few lines in my journal: “I woke up late, and Grace was late to school today (again), and the trash cans had to be taken out, and the dog nuzzled his dirty nose against my white overcoat, and the drive-in window at McDonald’s took five times longer than usual, and they poured my coffee out of an old pot, and I just know it’s going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.”
I hadn’t planned on writing those words; they just showed up on the paper. As I read them, I thought of Alexander and burst into laughter. And I had one of the best days I have had in a long time. It’s all in our attitude.
Yesterday as I was flying back to Nashville from Tulsa, the weather forecaster in Oklahoma warned us that there would be terrible storms across the Southeast, so I was concerned about my flight. The pilot pierced the clouds and got us above them. As I looked down on those magnificent, billowing, brilliant clouds, I thought to myself that storms are beautiful from the upper side.
We all have terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days. We all have stormy days. But when we are filled with the Spirit – when we have placed every part and parcel of our lives under the control of Jesus Christ – it affects our attitudes. We fly at a higher altitude. We find ourselves always giving thanks to God the Father through our Lord Jesus Christ.
After all, if all things work together for good, as Romans 8:28 promises, why not always give thanks in all things?
Morgan next inserts the following little section in this chapter of his book entitling it “Teaching Others About Being Filled with the Holy Spirit from Ephesians 5:18-21.” Here is his insert:
1. A command. Be filled with the Spirit.
2. A contrast. Don’t be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit.
3. A comparison. Being under the influence of the Spirit shares some surprising comparisons with being under the influence of alcohol (see Acts 2:1-15).
4. A change. How do we know if we are filled with the Spirit? Certain changes will occur in our lives: singing in our hearts (v.19), gratitude in our minds (v.20), and submission in our attitudes (v.21).
Morgan lastly ends this particular chapter of his book with the following anonymous quote:
“A grateful mind is a great mind; a thinking person is a thankful person.”
You are going to love this! As I just finished dictating the last sentence above, the AC repairman just emailed me the quote for the new compressor for our AC unit. To the glory of God, and only by His grace, I can honestly tell you that I am giving Him the “thanks” for it.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Love,
John & Terri
Eph. 5:20