Ephesians 1
(1) Intro
From:
Paul, a missionary of the Chosen One, Jesus, (because that’s what God wanted).
To:
the holy people in Ephesus [a city in Turkey] who trust in the Chosen One, Jesus.
Be filled with favor and peace from God (our Dad) and Jesus (the Leader).
(3) Jesus is Everything We Need & More
May God be blessed, since He’s Jesus’s Dad, and Jesus is the Chosen One. God really blessed us by sending the Chosen One, who contains every spiritual blessing in heaven. Before God even laid the foundations of the universe, He chose us in Jesus so we’d become 100% purified and faultless before God.
And God destined us long ago to be adopted as His children through the Chosen One, Jesus. He was thrilled to adopt us, which really magnified how amazing His kindness is. And we’ve been graced with His amazing kindness in the Beloved.
In Jesus, we now have the bail money that was needed to release us from prison—His blood, which pardons our crimes and ushers in forgiveness. God is so rich in kindness that He gave us even more than we needed.
(9) God’s Master Plan: Compile Everything into Jesus
God’s master plan used to be a mystery to us, but now His kind intentions have been made known through Jesus. God took His kind intentions and set them in Jesus’s sights so He’d be a suitable manager for the end of time. And you know what God’s master plan is? It’s to compile everything into the Chosen One—including everything in heaven and on earth.
Yes, we’ve gotten quite the inheritance in Jesus. Our destinies are now aligned with God’s mission, and God is using everything to advance His master plan. As some of the first people to hope in the Chosen One, God gave us this inheritance so we’d make Him even more famous.
(13) The Holy Spirit is a Downpayment
When you heard the good news about being rescued, you believed in Jesus and were sealed in Him with the Sacred Spirit of God’s promise. That Sacred Spirit was given as a “first installment” of our inheritance (kind of like how a man gives an engagement ring to his fiancé before the wedding). When we receive that Spirit, it foreshadows the moment when God will bail us out, claiming us as His own belongings. Isn’t that such a good reason to celebrate His fame?!
(15) Jesus Surpasses Comprehension
That’s why I’m so thankful for you: I’ve heard how much you trust the Leader (Jesus) and how much you love God’s holy people. I mention you guys all the time when I’m talking to God.
I ask Jesus’s God (the Father of magnificence) to give you a wise spirit that will show you the true Jesus so you can know Him. I ask God to illuminate your inner eyes so you’ll be able to appreciate how much hope His invitation offers. I want to appreciate how excessively glorious the inheritance is for God’s sacred people. And I want you to appreciate how over-the-top He is at showing His power to us believers through the Chosen One.
After all, God woke up Jesus from death and sat Him at His right hand in the heavenly realm, above every other empire, authority, and power. God placed Him above everything that has ever been named or ever will be named! And God assigned everything else a rank beneath Jesus’s feet.
And God gave Jesus to the church as the head over everything. The church is Jesus’s body, and it operates as God’s fullness—and God fills every part of everything.