Something Spectacular

DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE EPHESIANS

SOMETHING SPECTACULAR

Eph 1:18-19

18 I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe.

NIV

Paul continues with his prayer for them and it is full of rich truths. Just what does he mean regarding the eyes of our hearts being enlightened? We think this might be all about faith, having real faith, real hope, which is what he is saying is the reason for having an enlightened heart. So we might know the hope to which we have been called. This word hope has great significance in Greek. It can mean anticipation with pleasure, but it also can mean joyful and confident expectation, and in the sense of this context, of eternal life. Our hope is not like, “I hope I get that new whatever for my birthday”. This hope is not really hoping at all, it is a joyful confidence. We do not have to hope, we can expect it to happen. It is promised by God and he never fails to keep his word. Because we believe in Jesus, God has called us to eternal life with him. He has blessed us with that glorious inheritance. We never have to worry about it, it is a done deal, and our destination is heaven. This is not a see-saw of life, that when we fail him we are out, and when we do good we are back in. We can have confidence that we are going to be in heaven because we believe in Jesus, we are born again. Of course we will never be perfect until we reach heaven in our glorified bodies, but nevertheless, we are still going to heaven. That is our inheritance as children of God. It is not based on how good we are, or how much we do or don’t do. It is not based on anything other than faith in Jesus. That is having the eyes of our hearts enlightened. That is knowing our hope to which he has called us. Jesus told us that he went to prepare a place for us and that he would come back to take us to that place, so we may be where he is, with him. That is not a hope, it is a reality and we should be living in that reality. In addition to all that, if that is not enough, we also have available to us the incomparably great power of God. We have to think that it would be the most awesome life ever, to live, having the power of God in us. We are not sure how that all works, and what exactly that looks like, but it is something spectacular. The whole thing, heaven, and his power is, in fact, something spectacular.