Letters from Dad – Ephesians 1
What if Father wrote Ephesians 1 to me? I like to take a passage of scripture and personalize it, as if Dad is speaking it directly to me. Reading it aloud becomes an amazing experience. My ears hear my own voice, but my heart hears his.
I chose Paul to be an apostle of Jesus, my son. 2 I have him write letters to you, my devoted one, whom I have made holy, making you one with Jesus. I release grace over you and impart total well-being into your life.
3 I have already lavished upon you every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realm. It is my love gift to you. I see you wrapped into my own son Jesus. This is why you can celebrate me with all your heart!
4 I chose you to be my very own, joining you to myself even before I laid the foundation of the universe! In my great love for you, I ordained you. I see you as holy, with an unstained innocence.
5-6 For it was always in my perfect plan to adopt you as my delightful child, through your union with Jesus, so that my tremendous love would cascade over you and brightly reveal my grace . I love you just as I love my beloved son Jesus. And my unfolding plan brings me great pleasure!
7 Since I have joined you to Jesus, I have given you the treasures of redemption by his blood—the total cancellation of your sins—all from the cascading riches of my grace toward you. 8 My superabundant grace is already powerfully working in you, releasing within you all forms of wisdom and practical understanding. 9 And through the revelation of Jesus, I unveiled my secret desires to you—the hidden mystery of my long-range plan, which I was delighted to implement from the very beginning of time. 10 And because of my unfailing purpose, my detailed plan will reign supreme through every period of time until the fulfillment of all the ages finally reaches its climax—when I make all things new in all of heaven and earth through my son Jesus.
11 Through your union with Jesus, I claim you as my own inheritance. Before you were even born, I gave you a destiny; that you would fulfill my plan. I always accomplish every purpose and plan in my heart. 12 My purpose was that the Jews would be the first to believe in Jesus and reveal who I am for all to see!
13 And because of Jesus, when you heard the revelation of truth, you believed in the wonderful news of salvation. Now I have stamped you with the seal of my Holy Spirit, as I promised I would.
14 I gave my Holy Spirit to you like a groom gives an engagement ring to his bride. It is the first installment of what’s coming! My Spirit is your hope-promise of a future inheritance. He seals you until you have all of redemption’s promises and experience complete freedom. All this reveals who I am—do you see it?
15 I have noticed that your faith in Jesus is strong, and that you have a tender love toward all my devoted ones. 16 My heart is always full and overflowing toward you as I think about you constantly. 17 I impart to you the riches of my wisdom and revelation, that you would know me and share a deepening intimacy with me.
18 I illuminate the eyes of your imagination, flooding you with my light, until you experience the full revelation of what I’m calling you to—that is, the wealth of my glorious inheritance that I find in you, my holy one!
19 I want you to continually experience the immeasurable greatness of my power made available to you through faith. Then your life will be an advertisement of my immense power as it works through you! It’s the mighty power 20 that I released when I raised Jesus from the dead and exalted him to the place of highest honor and supreme authority in the heavenly realm! 21 And now my son is exalted as first above every ruler, authority, government, and realm of power in existence! I have gloriously enthroned him over every name that is ever praised, not only in this age, but in the age that is coming!
22 And Jesus alone is the leader and source of everything needed in the church. I put everything beneath his authority and gave him the highest rank above all others. 23 And now you are his church, his body on the earth and that which fills him who is being filled by it!
(Transposed from the text of The Passion Translation).
