I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power into us who believe. Ephesians 1:18-19.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
There are many things I tell you that come in three’s that are My Will for your life. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give constant thanks, that is My Will for you in Christ Jesus. The Spirit, the Water, and the Blood testify that you have eternal life in Jesus. Faith, hope, and love, these three remain forever. And I am one God in three divine persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And you have a spirit, a soul, and a body in the one unique person that you are.
Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:19-20.
Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass. 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24.
And there is another one that you also know only by revelation light: the hope of My calling, the riches of the glory of My inheritance in the holy ones, and what is the surpassing greatness of My power into you who believe. Ephesians 1:18-19. And this is the very core and essence of your life for it contains the purpose, the plan, the reward and the power to attain it. It reveals who you are, what you have, and how you achieve it. This revelation comes in a prayer from the Holy Spirit penned by My apostle Paul. It begins:
“For this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you and your love for all the saints, do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers . . .” Ephesians 1:15-16.
For what reason? Let us look to the context in which this prayer was written to find out.
First, who is Paul writing to? Believers like you, who like you when you receive Christ, were sanctified in the blood of Jesus. And he is writing to those who “are faithful in Jesus Christ.” Ephesians 1:1. When you receive Jesus as Lord, I sanctify you and set you apart as holy.
And if you start at the beginning of this letter, you will have many things listed for you that you have in Jesus by grace. You will find that in Christ you are blessed, chosen, redeemed, sanctified, children and heirs, lavished with grace, sealed in Christ by the Holy Spirit and possessors of eternal redemption—spirit, soul and body. This is the reason Paul gives thanks for you, that is, that you have received every spiritual blessing in heaven in Christ, having been chosen by Me before the foundation of the world that you would be holy and blameless before Me in love. Ephesians 1:3-4. You have answered My call and been faithful.
After thanking Me that I saved you and you accepted My invitation to receive the good news of your salvation when you heard it, he begins a prayer for you that you would be wise to join in for yourself and others.
He begins his prayer that “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.” Ephesians 1:18-19.
He is praying you may know three things that you can only know by the spirit of wisdom and revelation in true knowledge of who I am, which you have to know in your spirit. For I am Spirit and My call, inheritance and power are spiritually discerned.
But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ. 1 Corinthians 2:14-16.
The magnificence of what I have prepared for those who love Me is so far beyond human understanding that without My Spirit in you revealing it you cannot know it. But I have given you My Spirit from which to drink.
Now let us look at these three amazing truths that are for you who love and follow Me.
- “so that you will know what is the hope of His calling”
A calling from Me is to live your purpose and the plan for your life. How do you know the purpose and the plan? By the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Me.
What do you know about Me? Who am I? The revelation of who I am penned by My beloved disciple who leaned upon the heart of Jesus at the Last Supper, stated that I am love. I do not just have it, that is My nature. I think in love, talk in love, and walk in love, everything else is foreign to Me and cannot enter into Me or stay in My presence. As Jesus told you, Satan had NO part in Him. Darkness and light are not compatible but the light always wins if you let it shine in.
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. . . For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. 2 Corinthians 4:3-4,6.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it. John 1:1-4.
If you want to know the purpose of something, ask the one who created it. I created you in My image and according to My likeness. I created you to be just like Me, love. Light and love and living with Me in perfect oneness as My family forever. You are My children and My friends, but even more, I have espoused you to Me forever in faithfulness, truth, and love. I have called you to be ruling and reigning with Me forever. I have made covenant with you.
So what is the hope of My calling? To understand Scripture you go to the Scriptures that define it further for you. Look for the witnesses in My Word.
Just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children, so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory. 1 Thessalonians 2:12.
After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you. To Him be dominion forever and ever. Amen. 1 Peter 5:10-11.
God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. 1 Corinthians 1:9.
Do you see what is the hope of My calling? I have made you in My image and called you to My eternal glory in My Kingdom through divine fellowship and partnership with Jesus. You are in covenant with Jesus and He is in covenant with Me, and through, with and in Him you are joined in that everlasting covenant with Me, which is knowing the One true God and the One He sent, Jesus your Lord, which is eternal life.
And your calling has to do not only with your purpose for being but with the plans I have for you, precious plans that outnumber the sand. Do you see why? The grains of sand in the world are a finite number, though you cannot count them, but I have for I weighed them all in the balance and cupped them in My hands when I formed the world to make it just the right weight and proportions to spin on its axle through space as it orbits the sun at just the right distance to keep you thriving and comfortable on the planet earth. But My plans for you span all eternity and never end, though I know the whole of them. Think about that.
But what is My plan for your life? What does the life of good deeds I prepared for you in advance that you would walk them out with joy in Christ Jesus look like? Ephesians 2:10. Let me elaborate on this. I lead you by My Spirit along paths of righteousness for My Name’s sake, so always follow your good Shepherd by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit who Jesus has poured out from My throne upon you. Acts 2:33. But there is the same fourfold plan for every believer even though you walk it out in accordance with the gifts and talents I have given you and the time and place you live.
What is that fourfold plan? I set it out clearly for you in My Word in various places and ways, and the fourfold mission that is My plan for you is the same as it was for Jesus while He walked the earth.
The plan is ultimately the same as I spoke from the beginning, that you bear much fruit, you’re your life be fruitful and not idle, blessing everyone with your talents and gifts. The plan was always for you to be fruitful branches on the Vine of Jesus and He has told you how that is carried out, although this life is a test to see whether you choose life or death, love or hate, the blessing or the curse, you do not leave this world the minute you take Jesus as Lord for now as His body on earth you have a mission to accomplish, an assignment to fulfill. And it is a Kingdom assignment which is in accord with your calling and you do it in fellowship and partnership with Me through Jesus.
And that is why, Jesus prayed that for His disciples and all those that would believe in Him through their word at the Last Supper when He was about to return to Me having done the work I gave Him to do that I would not take you out of the world but that you would stay in the world though you were not to be of the world but of My Kingdom for a purpose according to the fourfold plan. And I told you exactly what that meant:
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 2 Corinthians 5:17-20.
(i) You are to be ambassadors with a ministry of reconciliation to the homeland.
An ambassador goes to a country which is not his homeland to represent his country there and create good relations. His homeland supports, protects, and provides for all the care and supplies, including a beautiful place to live, that he needs delivered to him in the foreign country. He is not worried if he is in a poor country where people are in abject poverty for it is not like that for him. He is in that country but not of that country and he is not bound by its limitations.
I have made you who are the body of Christ in the world a very particular kind of ambassador. You have a ministry of reconciliation in that you are to bring all in the foreign lands to salvation in Jesus and make them born again citizens of your homeland, which is the Kingdom of Heaven. You are bringing those among whom you are stationed out of darkness into My marvelous light to the praise of My glory, which is the exercise of My immense power in love producing goodness and eradicating evil.
Next Jesus is very clear about what you were to do as His representative and body in the world once you were clothed with the power from on High, that is, the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, “Which,” He said, “you heard of from Me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” Acts 1:4-8.
(ii) You are to be witnesses to Jesus
From where you are to the ends of the earth you are to show My love and light to the world in telling the good news of the gospel of Salvation in Jesus. You are to show them by your personal knowledge of Me the joy of My love and what it is like to experience My love every moment of the day and night. You are to testify to who I AM and what I have done for everyone in Jesus. He paid the ransom for ALL.
And what did He tell you next?
“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father. Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it. “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.” John 14:12-17.
(iii) Indwelt by God’s Spirit and the Mystery of Christ in You, Your hope of Glory You are to do the works Jesus did and greater.
Just as Jesus sent His disciples with His authority to heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons, and preach the good news so now He sends you in the full authority He won by His life, death, resurrection and ascension to glory, where I have seated you with Him, to do the works He did and greater in His Name and by the power of the Holy Spirit in you and on you.
These signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues; they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” Mark 16:17-18.
And what is the greater work? You can lead people in the prayer of salvation so they are born again from above as a new creation. Jesus could not do that while on earth because He had not died for your sins yet so the wall of sin and separation still was a rift between us that you could not cross on your own. Thus, the work of reconciliation, which is now complete.
And there is one more to make the fourfold and it has to do with His anointing by the Holy Spirit as a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek when He returned to Me in Heaven to now sit upon the throne reserved for man that Adam had abdicated to the devil. But Jesus knocked him off that throne and took it back for you.
Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood—and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father—to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen. Revelation 1:5-6.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 1 Peter 2:9-10.
(iv) You belong to the Royal Priesthood of Prevailing Prayer
You are now given the great office of the royal priesthood which I foretold to the Israelites as the desire of My heart when I brought them out of Egypt on eagle’s wings as a Covenant people to be My own special treasure though the whole earth is Mine. They were to be a light to the nations, calling in the gentiles to join them in the oneness of My Word and My Covenant. But they broke My Covenant and were unfaithful, going to other gods, idols of gold and silver. So I made one tribe that was more loyal than the others to be My priesthood to minister to Me and the people, but they failed at that as well.
But now the royal priesthood is instated in the New Covenant in Jesus and will not fail for your great High Priest ever lives to make intercession for you. And I have invited you to come with Him as the High Priest of your words that are in perfect agreement with His to My throne to receive mercy for all the nations and to find grace for wondrous solutions, signs and wonders right in the Holy of Holies before Me. I watch over My Word to perform and your prayers in union with those of Jesus each morning and evening are taking down strongholds that the devil has entrenched in the nations that he has plunged into darkness, poverty, and pain, sending in light, lifting up Jesus, and getting My Will done in the earth. Prayer is the most powerful of all in changing stony hearts to hearts open to My Spirit.
Another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a golden censer; and much incense was given to him, so that he might add it to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel’s hand. Then the angel took the censer and filled it with the fire of the altar, and threw it to the earth; and there followed peals of thunder and sounds and flashes of lightning and an earthquake. Revelation 8:3-5.
I love you and call you to be My own. We still have two more of the three revelations that the Holy Spirit prayed through Paul that you would be enlightened to know, but we will leave those for the next Life Lesson so you can take time to meditate on what you have learned today.