May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace. Eph 1: 2 NLT May God’s grace be eternally upon all who love our Lord Jesus Christ. Eph 6: 24 NLT With very little fanfare we finished our 6-week study of Ephesians and 7-week round-up of Bible Study Methods. What were your main take-aways? What mattered to you about what you learned? I felt that I finally reduced Inductive Bible Study to its simplest possible form: Observe, Interpret, and Apply. The idea of sitting down with any passage of scripture and navigating through it now seems possible to me. I still like my prompts and I'm dependent on my journal (or as my grandson calls it as he totes it around "our secret history map,") but I now understand that the whole process helps turn God's Word into my life story. And Ephesians, you sweet book of only 6 chapters containing God's amazing purpose for the Church and for me-- how can I reduce you to only one theme? I struggled with this until one final reread focused my eyes on the one word that Paul began and ended with: grace. It was grace that brought Jesus to the cross and grace that opened my eyes to Him there. Grace propels those lavish spiritual blessings upon us daily-- redemption and renewal are possible only because of grace. Our purpose and ambitions are defined by grace. And our Father's love is revealed to us because of His gracious nature. Grace is the thing I will take with me from this study. Grace beginning my study and my days, grace ending my meditations and my nights. May you know His hope, may you know His love, may you feel and be aware of constantly, His grace. If grace really changes everything, then LET it change everything. Amen. -Jan Comments are closed.
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AuthorLoving words written to increase hope. Archives
May 2020
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