EXPLORE IT - Ephesians 3:14-21; Matthew 16:15-17

Ephesians 3:14-21

Matthew 16:15-17   "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?"  16 Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."  17 Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.

Have you ever read something and had to read a section over and over because you just did not understand what the passage meant?  Or have you ever been listening to someone speak and you had to stop them because you really weren’t sure what they are talking about?  Sometimes, we have the same struggles with God and His Word.  Sometimes we’ll be reading the Bible or listening to a sermon and shake our head because we really have no idea what is going on.  In our passage this week, Ephesians 3:14-21, Paul shares the answer to this problem – The Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity (the Trinity is God the Father, Jesus the Son, and The Holy Spirit).  The Holy Spirit is the part of God who lives within us after we accept Jesus as the Lord of our life…we have a portion of God living in us!  The Holy Spirit gives us strength to go through our day, helps us to hold our tongues when we would rather make an inappropriate comment, but He also helps us understand the things of God.

God is complicated!  While we can understand part of God, we will never understand all of God (I mean, would we really want to serve a god that is small enough for us to understand?).  We need God’s help to understand Him.  Even Jesus spoke to the fact that God helped Simon Peter to conclude that Jesus was, “…the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16b).  In fact, we can ask God to help us understand Him more and that is what Paul is doing in our passage this week.  Paul desires that we better understand how amazing Jesus’ love is for us; so much so that Paul prays that the Holy Spirit would give us this understanding.

So the next time you don’t understand something, ask the Holy Spirit to help you!  He can help us better understand the Bible, our school work, our co-workers…He can even help you better understand the love Jesus has for you!

Blessings,
Pastor Amy