Bible Verse of the Day Thursday January 4th, 2024

Ephesians 3:11-12 according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.

Most of us can remember when we were in school and dreaded being summoned to the principal's office. In our adult lives, the call to come to the Boss's office unexpectedly can conjure up some of the same feelings. Woefully, many believers in Christ harbor some of those same negative feelings when they go to God in Prayer. They will invariably avoid the one truth Jesus told us, "Nothing was impossible" (Luke 1:37), and what a misfortune that can be. 

 

The one who sits on the throne and rules the world is not a cantankerous school principal or a fearful employer. The holy one that sits on the throne and rules the world and created each one of us in His image is not a brutal oppressor insisting on our total appeasement. On the contrary, He is our Father in Heaven and, as such, finds great joy in bestowing blessings upon His children. His most excellent heart desires to bequeath great blessing upon all who surrender to Christ Jesus, heart, mind, body, and soul. Furthermore, He has created a great and wonderful plan set in motion at the birth, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus. 

 

As his followers and believers, we have become priests in His kingdom 1 Peter 2:9. "You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." In the bible, "priests" have access to God directly on behalf of others. Our verse today reminds us that we can approach the throne of God with "freedom and confidence." This form of approach to God and his throne is opposite to much of the so-called religious beliefs and teachings in the world today. Paul tells us in his letter to the church at Ephesus that this access to God's throne is not through anything or any good work we might do (Ephesians 3:7-9). We have this free access to God's Throne through our confidence in the work and sacrifice of Christ Jesus on the Calvary’s Cross and our total confidence in the saving grace of our Savior. 

 

If, as followers and believers in Christ, we find some difficulty in approaching God's throne, we must take that as a sign that we need to intensify our faith and trust in the faithfulness of Christ Jesus and His sacrificial work on the Cross. A washed-in-the-blood believer should never hesitate to approach the throne of God for direction, but most of all, to worship and praise the one who made our eternal life possible.