month of discoveries, find #14: ephesians 1:13-14

Ok so you know how alive Scripture is?  Have you ever read a verse a million times before and didn't quite understand it or it's significance didn't come to you until you read it for the 1,000,001 time?  Well that just happened for me while I was doing my morning devotions just now.  (And that's why I'm going to claim it as a new find!  God's Word is alive and active!)


Ephesians 1:13-14 says,

"In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory."

Whoa.  Did you catch that?  Do you understand how huge this is???  

What first caught me with this verse is the word "sealed".  After hearing the truth that Jesus Christ is God and all that He has done in conquering our sins and death for us, and believing it, Paul (the writer of Ephesians) says that the Holy Spirit seals our salvation.  He makes it permanent!  God reached down to us by sending Jesus Christ, we, in turn, reach back to Him by believing Him, and then we are sealed.  We are sealed!  Why do people think they must say 20 "Hail Mary's" to be okay with God?  Why do people think they must go to church every Sunday to be accepted into heaven?  Where does that stuff come from?  Not the Bible!  God has made it so easy for us ... we just need to believe in Him.  Allow Him to have His way in our lives.  Allow Him to transform our lives.

The hope of every Christian is for the day that Christ returns to bring us to heaven (no, it didn't happen on May 21, 2011 ... but it will happen when God the Father, and only God the Father says it's time).  When Jesus rose and ascended back up to heaven, He sent the third person of the Trinity to work in the lives of Christians: the Holy Spirit.  It is the Holy Spirit that seals us.  It is the Holy Spirit who works through our lives, keeping us for the day of redemption - Christ's return to bring us back to Himself.  Oh my gosh!  Just hearing that, remembering that ... it brings me so much peace, so much joy!  He is coming back for us!  Jesus Christ, our inheritance.  He bought us with His blood.  We are His.  He is coming back for us.  Believe it, my friends!  Hope for it!