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The Light
Dr David Wood
MY
PRAYER FOR YOU – PART ONE
I come to you this
month with praise to God for each and every one of you, just as Paul had
thanksgiving in his heart and gave praise to God for the Church at Ephesus. I
trust that each of you had a wonderful time of Thanksgiving with family and
loved ones. Christmas is almost upon us, praise His name. This is a wonderful
time of year and I understand it is also a stressful time of year. Submit
yourselves under Him and cast all your cares on Him for He loves you and wants
to care for you. This month we will deal in part with Paul’s Holy Ghost prayer
for the saints at Ephesus.
Ephesians 1:15-23 (KJV)
15 Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus,
and love unto all the saints,
16 Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my
prayers;
17 That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may
give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:
18 The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know
what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his
inheritance in the saints,
19 And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward
who believe, according to the working of his mighty power,
20 Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and
set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places,
21 Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion,
and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is
to come:
22 And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to
be the head over all things to the church,
23 Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.
Paul starts off by
telling them, the Church at Ephesus, that he has heard of their faith in the
Lord Jesus and of their love for the saints. I think it is interesting that
these two spiritual laws and fruit of the spirit are mentioned right at the
beginning of this letter. Don’t you suppose that he had heard many things about
them and this is two of the things he had heard? Apparently those other things
were somewhat less important or inconsequential to the Kingdom of God. After
all we must never lose sight of the fact that we are children, sons, of the
Father and our primary duty is to be a builder of the family name. Faith and
love are inexorably joined.
Galatians 5:6 (KJV)
6 For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor
uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.
We see from this
Scripture in Galatians that faith will not work unless it is under girded by
love. We are talking about the God kind of love, agape love. Look at 1
Corinthians 13:4-8 in various translations and you will see how love acts and
that when you act that way you will never fail. What a deal, a formula that
avoids failure one-hundred percent of the time! Examine those verses and than
honestly examine your life and ask the Holy Spirit to teach you about love.
This is off course for this months study but you can not invest your time in a
better subject. The Scripture is clear that God is love (1 John 4:8, 16) and so
we as sons (and daughters) of God are love also. You got all of God’s organs
when you were born again of incorruptible seed. God is all the fruit of the
spirit and so are you (Galatians 5:22-23). Love flushes out fear and this is
important because fear has torment. And who is the tormentor? The one who
comes to steal, kill and destroy. So fear takes us out of the will of God and
places us squarely in the will of Satan. Fear takes us out of certain victory
into certain defeat. Why, faith works by love and love never fails!
Next we discover
that faith is the only way to please God and it is the substance of all things.
You can bring nothing out of the spiritual realm into the physical without faith
and remember you must be walking in love.
Hebrews 11:6 (KJV)
6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for
he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder
of them that diligently seek him.
The writer of
Hebrews tells us that we can not please God without faith. Now, if you have no
interest in pleasing God or pleasing Him is secondary to pleasing yourself or
someone else than repent right now before you move on.
Mark
9:23 (KJV)
23 Jesus said unto him,
If thou canst believe, all things are possible
to him that believeth.
When we operate in
faith then all things come into view. Now I am not talking about selfish works
of the flesh. I am talking about walking in the will of God which is servant to
the law of love.
Matthew
22:36-40 (KJV)
36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37 Jesus said unto him,
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it,
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
40 On these two commandments hang all the
law and the prophets.
Paul said he had
heard of their “love unto all the saints.”
1
John 5:2 (KJV)
2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God,
and keep his commandments.
And what are His
commandments? Just look back to Matthew twenty-two!
Finally,
1
John 5:4 (KJV)
4 For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the
victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.
Remember in His
love and exercising love you are an over comer one hundred percent of the time.
And what force causes us to over come? Our faith! And what causes our faith to
operate effectively? Love!
Give Him thanksgiving for His love and
praise Him that He is love and has made you love as well. Again, have a
wonderful Christmas and I will see you again January 1st 2008! Look
forward with expectancy to 2008 it is a year of new beginnings and I believe
this earth will see a visitation of God like never before.
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