Sueann

1.To be "holy" means to live a life for God, to be seperate spiritually from the things of the world. 2.To stand blameless before God, one must desire to put God first in all things and to continually desire to know Him better, to live for Him alone. It's all about an on going relationship with our heavenly Father.

1. Before I became a Christian, this passage pretty much infuriated me. To think that God would choose some to be saved and some to perish was unthinkable. But, He is God and can do whatever He pleases. Whatever He pleases-this is scary! 2. What is comforting to me is that I have an awesome responsibility to be a fruitful steward of God's calling on my life. Because I am "in Christ", I can do all things because of His awesome strength that supports me. Though at times, the Christian walk can be daunting, I know who I am and most importantly, I know where my fortitude comes from. 3. I believe Paul brings up the subject of predestination so as to bring to light yet another aspect of what it means to be clothed with a new identitiy in Christ. When we desapir or when we are discouraged, we need to remember what we inherited as a child of God. Strength comes from knowing that we belong to God, we were bought with a price, we are righteous in His sight, we have been given a personal counselor-the Holy Spirit, Jesus dwells within the life of every believer and He has called us by name AND we responded. 4. I belive Paul is praising God because he can share with the Ephesians how God's plan for the lives of His saints were known from eternity past. To understand that every believer was known by God before the foundation of the world AND to know that you are one of God's chosen is enough for anyone to praise God and jump for joy.

To be "in Christ" means that I have access to Him all the time because He is with me, a part of me, in me and I in Him. He is a part of who I am and because of this intimacy, wherever I go, there He is. I am always encouraged and reminded that I am not alone no matter what the circumstances in my life.