kcusty

Adoption is an apt illustration of God's love for us because it shows us that God chooses us and we are complete in Him ..we have all the rights and all the gifts that God gives to those he chooses...we are favored and we are full of God's grace. This concept is encouraging to us because it not only gives us freedom and salvation but it opens us to a close relationship with God the Father.

Holy means to be pure in God and separate from sin or evil. You can stand blameless before God if we are sin free...free from any sinful habits and pure in God's love. When our sins are forgiven and we are reconciled with God we are blameless before Him.

Predestination can be scary if we don't put our total faith in God. He has a plan and purpose for each of us and unless we are willing to accept this, we will be scared. The good part about predestination is that the comfort of knowing our Heavenly Father has taken each of us and proposed a special plan and purpose for our lives so that we will lead meaningful and complete lives for Christ. Paul brings up the subject of predestination to show how loving our God is to give these gifts to each Christian. Paul is prasing God for it because he wants them to know that God is providing for us always in ways we are not aware of yet. He wants us to know taht God is bleswsing us with every spiritual blessing available to us.

To me, being in Christ is being present 'along with Him' all the time...not just sometimes...it is a commitment to share my life with Him and everything good and bad that happens to me...I will compare my life to a car and when I invited Jesus into my life He came in and took over the wheel..after all He knows the way better than I could know it and He is a better driver than I am..but sometimes I want to be in control so I take over the wheel and this is when things start to go wrong...so when I take over the wheel I need to come clean and confess that I had done wrong and hand the wheel back to Jesus...so He is in total control of my life...I surrender to Him ..The implications are tremendous...I now feel safe and protected and loved beyond measure because I have total faith in my driver....

HI...I am from Florida and I am married...I have two grown daughters who live in Canada and two grandsons...I am so looking forward to studying the book of Ephesians with everyone...it is an opportunity to grow in the Lord and to learn from other believers....