17)
That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the
knowledge of him:
18)
The eyes of your understanding being
enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the
riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,
19)
And what is the exceeding greatness of his
power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power,
20)
Which he wrought in Christ, when he
raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly
places,
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often than not, men try to understand the greatness of the Lord according to
their own understanding. This ensures failure and confusion in this quest, for the
human psyche is unable to understand that which is spiritual. As opposed to
using our own resources to "get a handle" on the Creator, we must
examine what the Lord has already done in order to understand Who He is.
One
thing that is readily apparent to all who would inquire is that God is a
supplier of all needs. We know this because of His deeds and in turn, the deeds
inform us of His greatness. We are doing ourselves a disserve
if we fail to appropriate these deeds to our own situations, now. The God that
we serve is not the God of the "then," but the God of eternity.
Will
we never lean that our "failures" are indicative of nothing and no
one but our own spiritual state? If it were true that others could keep us from
progressing or cause us to fail the Lord, we would be able to accuse Him of
"setting us up" to fail! There is no place in the scripture where
this has ever been true. But, what is true is that after the Lord has
"exhausted" all of the effort that He intends to expend upon us, He
will allow us to reap the consequences of our "indiscretions." Of
what do these consist? Failure to take Him at His word, lack
of belief and obedience, rebellion and a host of other things.
It
is becoming increasing apparent that the time has come for all of us to accept
the personal responsibility for our own lack of progress. He told Man so long
ago that He is a God Who never changes so that at no time, under no
circumstances would we have to wonder about who is responsible for our final
resting place. Yes, the Lord bestows upon us the gift of the Holy Ghost, but
after this, we are given some requirements that we must meet if we are to enjoy
continued success. You see, the Lord knows that He never changes, and He also
knows that we are subject to do just that. Therefore, He bases our walk on
faith. If one would be found exercising faith, he will be found unwavering,
turning neither to the left, nor right. This person will be he who one finds as
"stable" as the Lord. This description "separates the men from
the boys," so to speak.
No
one having pledged to serve the Lord will have a life free from "enemy
attack." As we all know, escalated attacks are to be expected. Everyone's
outcome, however, will not be the same. This, too, the Lord knows. You see, His
"goal" is the same for all individuals: salvation. Though He must go
about it in different ways, the end of His "work" is to produce a
soul ready for the soon coming of the
One
loses one's victory through the negative operation of the mind. If this
"center of the motivations" can be paralyzed or "crippled"
by the enemy, he really does not need to do much more. The wise man is the one
who looks not to himself for power to overcome, but rather, to the One Who has
already gained the victory. This type of identification with the Lord helps us
to gain the spiritual intimacy necessary to learn of the Lord what we must and
need to know.
There is no salvation where there is no rest and the "rest" that comes from the Lord is designed as it is to bring us to the assurance that all of what we need has already been provided. This is "the greatness of His power to us-ward" and this is that which is designed to win the world.