Day 7- "Glorious"

Day 7- "Glorious"
How do you begin with a word like "glorious?" Whenever I think of glorious I connect it with a few other words, such as splendor, majesty, wonderousness, etc. However, glorious passes all of those. So, perhaps I should try and connect it with a different word a word we may not often see connected or associated with glorious. The word is weightiness. Huh? Now maybe your scratching you head going, "OK I was cool with the whole, 'I, Paul, bend my knee' thing but I'm not gonna go with 'out of his fat riches!'" However, weightiness does not necessarily mean fat. What I mean by weighty is what is meant when we say, "That guy/gal throws his/her weight around." Does that mean that person is fat? No, it means that they have power and influence and they can use their "weight" or "pull" to cause others to be of use to them. Perhaps instead of Weightiness we could use the term "influentially convincing." Strong's defines glory with words like, "one's own pleasure, to think, splendor." Yes, all of the above. You see the primary thing is that we understand that God is the epitome of gloriousness, and therefore if anything is "His" (see yesterday) it will also be filled with His glory (or His pleasure, thoughts, influence, weightiness, or splendor). The riches we are going to talk about tomorrow would be meaningless except for the word glorious that is connected to them because of necessity. If Jesus God = glory then do we want anything else than glorious riches? I personally only want what has been blessed by the hand of God and is therefore glorious. I am truly tired of the Church squandering its time and energies on less than glorious things and as a result we are falling apart. We've lost sight of the gloriousness of Christ and have in turn also compromised our love and hunger for things that are glorious--because God has blessed them. Let us seek things that are glorious and noble and upright. In that way God receives more glory. When we seek glorious things it isn't with the intent of us becoming more glorious, it is with the intent that we might be closer to God as a result.

Day 6- "His"

Day 6- "His"
Oh yeah, this is the one I've been looking forward to! So, "His." What do we know grammatically about the word? Well, it is a possessive pronoun for the male gender. So for instance instead of saying, "The dog belongs to Bob," you could say, "The dog is his." In the context of this verse, who does "his" represent? if the example sentence's "his" represents "Bob," who does the verse's "his" represent? On day 1 "I" represented Paul, so does "his" also represent Paul? Ah, no. It represents Him who is I AM THAT I AM! The Author and Perfector, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First, the Last, the One who upholds all things by His powerful word, Who stretched out the skies, Who threw the stars into place, Who set kings on the thrones and utterly obliterated other rulers, Who is the Word in the beginning, Who is the Amen at the end, Who controls time, is Who He is, the Son, Who humbled Himself even to death on a cross and God the Father gave Him the name that is above every name--even Karl Marx, Nebuchadnezzer, Jonah, Jeremiah, Moses, Hitler, Neitzshe, Stalin, Bush, Hussein, Ben Zornes, Your name, Billy Graham, Speilberg, Frodo Baggins, C.S. Lewis, Freud, Napolean, King Arthur, David, Saul, Adam, Eve, Mother Theresa, My mom, Hillary Clinton, Barbara Streisland, Julia Roberts, Johnny Depp, Kiera Knightly--that at His name every knee--including the above names--will bow and every tongue--even the staunchest atheist--confess that He is Lord to the glory of His Father; HIS NAME IS JESUS CHRIST MESSIAH!
And so, does this help us understand better who "His" is? His is supremacy, dominion, power, glory, praise, worship, adoration, wealth, wisdom, love, faith, joy, peace, wrath, death, life, need I go on? So, if Paul is praying with his knees bowed, with the intent that according to, "HIS." Yeah, it is ALL HIS so he can give out of it, and bestow whatever he chooses, whether blessing or curse, rain or shine. He can impart wisdom or foolishness, he can reveal and he can blind, and finally he can do what Paul is earnestly desiring for us...strength. Yet, by extension he can also impart weakness. However, when I am weak them He is strong...but that is for another day!

Day 5- "of"

Day 5- "of"
OK, by now I know you're thinking what in the world can one possibly get out of the word "of." What does of mean and how can it help me understand this scripture better?! Well, the first thing that came to my heart and mind was a sermon I heard preached about the different spirit's or influences we can be under or "of." For example there's the spirit of the Law, the Antichrist or of holiness! The preacher, Norm Wakefield, continually asked throughout the sermon, "What spirit are YOU of?!" Meaning what influence holds sway on you, which spirit do I take part in, what authority persuades me what to do? So, since that sermon, I have asked myself, "Ben, What Spirit are you of?" And my answer must be "The Holy Spirit is what I am of." You see when we allow ourselves to be "of" a spirit we give that Spirit (or influence) absolute sway over our thoughts, affections, desires, goals, dreams, attitudes, etc. In effect when we are OF something we resemble or accurately imitate it. I am OF my parents, meaning I came from them, I resemble them, I imitate them, I'm the spittin' image OF my Pa, get the point? Out OF his glorious riches! Ah...meaning when Jesus strengthens us with power (in the following sentence) it is OF (meaning accurately imitates or manifests) His glorious riches. I'll discuss glorious riches later, but it is important to understand OF. Because OF is a key to a lot of sentences. If we found a forgotten painting of da Vinci, we would say as we studied it that, "This is of (it accurately represents, depicts, imitates) da Vinci." Hence, I pray that out of his glorious riches...shows us that his glorious riches will be imputed to us and we will be given the exact representation of his glorious riches (oh boy and wait until we talk about his glorious riches!). Hmm...that phrase "exact representation" reminds me of a verse in Hebrews 1:3 "The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the EXACT REPRESENTATION of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word, NIV." Do you see it? Right after exact representation...OF his being!!!! Beautiful isn't it! I pray that you may receive the exact representation of his glorious riches (oh boy I can't wait for glorious and riches! For now think about Jesus Character traits!).

Day 4 "Out"

"Out"
Ah, this is a preposition, see I payed attention during homeschool! As I remember prepositions designated the subject's relation or position to the object of the preposition (OP). As in this sentence, "Tim went OUT of the store." This shows the reader the subject's, Tim in this case, relation to the OP, the store. Thus, we learn, if we look ahead a bit and rearrange the order of the sentence we see the verse more like this, "Paul bows his knees with the intent that He (meaning Jesus, see Day 9) would strengthen You (the Ephesians and by the rule of extension, us; see day 12) OUT of His glorious riches!" The relationship of the subject, us and the Ephesians, to the OP is the same as Tim to the store. Or, perhaps the example sentence would better parallel the verse if we rewrote it this way, "Tim took some products out of the store." Just like Jesus can take strength and impart it to us out of his glorious riches. This word out also implies there is something "in." His glorious riches are extensive and He can more than afford to give strength to us. But I am running away with myself, the word is "out." However, since out is a preposition it points to other words rather than itself (Kinda like we should do with God, but that is taking the verse out of context!). The KJV says "according to" rather than "out of. " Isn't that interesting? He can impart strength according to his strength, or "out of " His strength! Amazing! He has something, a storehouse for example, that He can take things Out of and give to others. It all belongs to Him, but He is the only One who can take "out." Praise the Lord! Out of His glorious Riches!