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The Fullness of Christ - Part 10

Published: 1 July 2011

God often uses different means to give us this sense of adoption. The Bible calls it the witness of the Spirit, whereby ‘the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God’ (Rom 8:14-17). He does it through the Scriptures; he does it through the acceptance of the Christian community. For me, it came through the fact that God had given me gifts. I was a very nervous person who never liked to talk in public, I wouldn’t open my mouth. When I thought I was going to be a preacher, I dared not tell anyone because I thought they’d laugh. ‘How can this fellow, who doesn’t know how to open his mouth, ever preach?’ But God gave me the desire to preach so I started writing sermons secretly. I live near the sea so, at night, I would go to the beach and, when there was no-one around, sit on the rocks and preach. Through this gift that God gave me, I began to realise that I am significant, I am important to him. I felt like a child.

From: The Fullness of Christ – Ephesians by Ajith Fernando page 52
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The Fullness of Christ - Part 9

Published: 15 June 2011

Sometimes we find ourselves praying for people: ‘O God, how can we convince these people that you love them? That you delight in them?’ How important it is for us to get people to understand the glory of adoption. So many people have come from dysfunctional homes; they’ve grown up without a father figure or with a terrible father and they don’t want to think of God as Father. Therefore some people say, ‘Don’t talk about God as Father because they’ll never understand it.’ But I would say, ‘True, they will not understand it, but we must teach them.’ Because, deep down in every human heart, there is a yearning for a father, for someone who truly cares. They need to understand it and when they do, it is good news to them.

From: The Fullness of Christ – Ephesians by Ajith Fernando page 50
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The Fullness of Christ - Part 8

Published: 1 June 2011

When we are justified, we are acquitted of guilt and declared blameless. We are declared righteous – that is the meaning of justification, ‘just as if’ we had not sinned. God treats us just as if we had not sinned. Theologians battle over how this happens and what happens with righteousness. The Bible says that Christ’s righteousness is imputed, is given, to us (1 Cor 1:30). ‘[God] is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption’ (1 Cor 1:30). 2 Corinthians 5:21 says: ‘For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.’ We become righteousness in Christ. Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us and then, gradually, our nature becomes conformed to Christ’s image.

From: The Fullness of Christ – Ephesians by Ajith Fernando page 42
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The Fullness of Christ - Part 7

Published: 15 May 2011

In Ephesians 1:3 Paul says, ‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ In the Old Testament, the people often described God as the God of their fathers: of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We have an even greater incentive to praise. This God whom we praise is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus gave a human fact to God. He showed us what true love is like. The Israelites trusted the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and there were wonderful stories of covenant love that they could look back to. But how much more we know in the New Testament. Jesus brought salvation straight into our individual lives through his life, death, resurrection and exaltation.

From: The Fullness of Christ – Ephesians by Ajith Fernando page 31
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