Eph. 3:14-19, from The Message:
"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—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. 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."
What an amazing life that would be! "Would be"? That is the life we all inherit as children of the Father through Jesus Christ. If that life is not the one you are living right now, what's missing? Why?
Perhaps another of Paul's writings, an instruction to us, is the answer (Romans 12:1-2):
"So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you."
What have you not offered to God as a complete offering? That is probably the very obstacle that is keeping you from enjoying the blessings Paul prayed for you. The same ones I pray for you. The same ones that are your gift from Jesus Christ. Why not take time to look at what that may be, and offer it to God today? See what results. It may surprise you. It will bless you!
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