Pastor Stephanie
EPHESIANS 3:1-3 MSG
This is why I, Paul, am in jail for Christ, having taken up the cause of you outsiders, so-called. I take it that you’re familiar with the part I was given in GOD’S PLAN for INCLUDING EVERYBODY. (Dispensation of the Grace of God) I got the inside story on this from God himself, as I just wrote you in brief.
God revealed Himself first to the Jews.
Only the Jews know who their God is.
We were not in the plan of God.
But God promised Abraham that the blessings were to also include the Gentiles nations.
God’s covenant now include the Gentiles too.
Through Jesus dying on the Christ, God’s plan for the Jews has now included everybody.
Jews had laws to govern them.
Tithing was already put there before the law came in.
Law came in through Moses.
Dispensation of Grace - Underserved favour and mercy of God.
It was God who found us. He was looking for us.
We were lost.
To love God even more.
Jews experienced the blessings through obedience of the law.
We came to enjoy the blessings of God by faith because of what Jesus done for us on the cross.
Jesus became our sin substitute.
EPHESIANS 3:4-5 MSG
As you read over what I have written to you, you’ll be able to see for yourselves into the MYSTERY of CHRIST. None of our ancestors understood this. Only in our time has it been made clear by God’s Spirit through his holy apostles and prophets of this new order.
EPHESIANS 3:6 MSG
The mystery is that people who have never heard of God and those who have heard of him all their lives (what I’ve been calling outsiders and insiders) - stand on the same ground before God. (JEWS and GENTILES - COHEIRS) They get the same offer, same help, SAME PROMISES in CHRIST JESUS. The Message is accessible and welcoming to everyone, across the board.
Ours live were in a mess.
God promised Abraham an inheritance.
All his descendants will be blessed.
Inherit blessings from God himself.
God does not keep secret from us.
EPHESIANS 3:7-8 MSG
This is my life work: helping people understand and respond to this Message. It came as a sheer gift to me, a real surprise, God handling all the details. When it came to presenting the Message to people who had no background in God’s way, I was the least qualified of any of the available Christians.
Being a Christian is not a religion.
It’s a born again experience.
People desire the born again experience because they are sick of the life they have on this earth.
Trying to do things to get a new life, a blessed life.
This is what the world calls it — a religion.
Each one has born again into a new life.
Gentiles actually have no understanding of God’s way.
We don’t know how God does things.
If we have not read the bible, we have no understanding of God’s way.
Jews were taught from generations to generations on God’s way.
EPHESIANS 3:8-10 MSG
God saw to it that I was equipped, but you can be sure that it had NOTHING to do with my natural abilities. And so here I am, preaching and writing about things that are way over my head, the INEXHAUSTIBLE RICHES and GENEROSITY of CHRIST.
God never choose anyone because of our natural abilities.
EPHESIANS 3:8-10 MSG
My task is to bring out in the open and make plain what God, who created all this in the first place, has been doing in secret and behind the scenes all along. Through FOLLOWERS of JESUS like YOURSELVES gathered in CHURCHES, this EXTRAORDINARY PLAN of GOD is BECOMING KNOWN and talked
EPHESIANS 3:9 TPT
My passion is to enlighten every person to this divine mystery. It was hidden for ages past UNTIL NOW, and kept a secret in the heart of God, the Creator of all.
EPHESIANS 3:10 TPT
The PURPOSE of this was:
- to unveil before every throne and rank of angelic orders in the HEAVENLY REALM
- GOD’S full and diverse WISDOM revealed THROUGH the CHURCH
The church is the “university of the angels”.
We were made a little lower than God.
When we go to Heaven, the angels minister to us.
God made man an under-ruler of this earth.
EPHESIANS 3:11-13 MSG
All this is proceeding along lines planned all along by God and then executed in Christ Jesus. When we TRUST in HIM, we’re free to say whatever needs to be said, bold to go wherever we need to go. So don’t let my present trouble on your behalf get you down. Be proud!
Be proud that we can now trust in God,
EPHESIANS 3:14-19 MSG
My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you BY HIS SPIRIT— not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—
EPHESIANS 3:14-19 MSG
that CHRIST will LIVE IN YOU as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with BOTH FEET planted FIRMLY on LOVE, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the EXTRAVAGANT DIMENSIONS of CHRIST’S LOVE.
EPHESIANS 3:14-19 MSG
(ENDLESS love BEYOND MEASUREMENT
that TRANSCENDS OUR UNDERSTANDING) Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.
Our experiences can never explain or be the basis of God’s love.
Never try to explain God’s love through our experiences.
How God love us is purely on the cross. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Look at Christ and not us.
We can never put God’s love in a box.
EPHESIANS 3:18-19 TPT
(this EXTRAVAGANT love pours into you until you are FILLED to OVERFLOWING with the FULLNESS of GOD!
EPHESIANS 3:20-21 MSG
God can do anything, you know—FAR MORE than you could ever IMAGINE or GUESS or REQUEST in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us. Glory to God in the church! Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus! Glory down all the generations! Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes!
EPHESIANS 3:20 AMP
Now to HIM WHO IS ABLE to [carry out His purpose and] do superabundantly more than all that we dare ask or think [INFINITELY BEYOND our greatest PRAYERS, HOPES, or DREAMS], ACCORDING to HIS POWER that is at work WITHIN US,
1 KINGS 3:3-4 NLT
Solomon LOVED the Lord and followed all the decrees of his father, David, except that Solomon, too, offered sacrifices and burned incense at the local places of worship. The most important of these places of worship was at Gibeon, so the king went there and sacrificed 1,000 burnt offerings.
H505 thousand
Original: אלף
Transliteration: 'eleph
Phonetic: eh'-lef
Properly the same as H504; hence (an ox's head being the first letter of the alphabet, and this eventually used as a numeral) a thousand:-
- From H502; a family; also (from the sense of yoking or taming) an ox or cow:- family, kine, oxen.
He was recognising God as God; as Aleph; as the first.
1 KINGS 3:5 NLT
THAT NIGHT the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream, and GOD said, “What do you want? ASK, and I will give it to you!”
1 KINGS 3:6-7 NLT
Solomon replied, “You showed great and faithful love to your servant my father, David, because he was honest and true and faithful to you. And you have continued to show this great and faithful love to him today by giving him a son to sit on his throne.
Solomon was aware that he is going to be the next heir after King David.
1 KINGS 3:6-7 NLT
“Now, O Lord my God, you have made me king instead of my father, David, but I am like a LITTLE CHILD who DOESN'T KNOW his WAY around.
Spiritual realm is totally different than physical realm.
1 KINGS 3:8-9 NLT
And here I am in the midst of your own chosen people, a nation so great and numerous they cannot be counted! Give me an understanding heart so that I can govern your people well and know the difference between right and wrong. For WHO BY HIMSELF is able to govern this great people of yours?”
In order to do God’s way, he has to learn God’s way.
We let the Lord teach and lead us.
1 KINGS 3:10-11 NLT
The LORD was PLEASED that Solomon had asked for wisdom. So God replied, “Because you have asked for wisdom in governing my people with justice and have not asked for a long life or wealth or the death of your enemies—
Ask God for wisdom.
For counsel, be humble.
Then we can receive counsel.
The Church is to reveal the wisdom of the Grace of God.
Don’t ever be worried of devil or enemies.
1 KINGS 3:12 NLT
I will GIVE YOU what you asked for! I will give you a wise and understanding heart such as no one else has had or ever will have!
1 KINGS 3:13 NLT
And I will ALSO GIVE YOU- WHAT YOU DID NOT ASK FOR—riches and fame! No other king in all the world will be compared to you for the rest of your life!
Spirit being is interested in spiritual things.
Be conscious of the spiritual realm.
1 KINGS 3:14 NLT
And if you FOLLOW ME and OBEY my decrees and my commands as your father, David, did, I will give you a long life.”
1 KINGS 10:13 KJV
And king Solomon gave unto the queen of Sheba ALL HER DESIRE, WHATSOEVER she ASKED, beside that which Solomon GAVE her of HIS ROYAL BOUNTY. So she turned and went to her own country, she and her servants.
Queen Sheba also recognised wisdom. She sought the right thing.
When we seek after God on the right thing, all these things will be given to us.
Today, we can have wisdom in Christ by meditation His word.
H2656 desire
Original: חפץ
Transliteration: chêphets
Phonetic: khay'-fets
the good pleasure
that in which one takes delight
From H2654; pleasure; desire; concretely a valuable thing; a matter (as something in mind):- acceptable, delight (-some), desire, things desired, matter, pleasant (-ure), purpose, willingly.
Rooted and grounded in His love.
Desire wisdom to help others to know how good God is.
He will give you the things you didn’t ask for.
GALATIANS 3:25-27 MSG
But now you have ARRIVED at your DESTINATION: By FAITH in CHRIST you are in direct relationship with God. Your baptism in Christ was not just washing you up for a fresh start. It also involved dressing you in an adult FAITH WARDROBE—CHRIST’S LIFE, the FULFILLMENT of God’s original PROMISE.
GALATIANS 3:28-29 MSG
In CHRIST’S FAMILY there can be no division into Jew and non-Jew, slave and free, male and female. Among us you are all equal. That is, we are all in a common relationship with Jesus Christ. Also, since you are CHRIST’S FAMILY, THEN you are Abraham’s famous “descendant,” - HEIRS according to the COVENANT PROMISES.
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