Ephesians 6:10 - Powered by THE Power

"For the rest, keep on being empowered in [the] Lord and in the strength of His might."

-For all these and for everything else, really... Every last facet of the Christian life is powered by Christ Himself.  Godly living is the life of God energized and unleashed in and through me.  Paul uses three different words for power here, all intended to drive home the truth that ours is a divine calling, a supernatural lifestyle which is impossible to achieve by any strictly human effort.  There is no earthly way we can attain to a life which even partially approximates the perfect everlasting love and goodness and mercy and purity and holiness of our heavenly Father.  But then we have that tiny little prepositional phrase - ‘in the Lord’.  ‘In Him’.  It can be rendered, ‘by the Lord’.  Powered by Him, by Christ.  By His strength, His might, His omnipotence.  The ability, the power to live this life, to run and win this race comes from above.  THE Ability.  THE Power.

-So many claims of power.  Powered by Intel.  Powered by Reebok.  Powered by Honda.  Powered by Microsoft.  Powered by Caffeine.  Powered by Energizer.  Powered by pork.  Pretenders, all.  Finite, flawed, falling short of even the barest minimum power required to raise a single soul out of spiritual death, out of brokenness and depravity and abject selfishness.  The power to faithfully love and nourish my wife and my kids and to love and serve and build up my fellow Christ-followers and to love my neighbors (not to mention my enemies), the power to pray and to do good in season and out of season and to rejoice always and pray without ceasing and give thanks in all things - the ability to do any of these things and all the rest does not reside in me, not anywhere in my dying carcass of flesh, $3.50 worth of chemicals animated by a soul insinctively hell-bent on serving the three-fold self.  And yet, if I am in Christ, if I have put my trust in Him - this One Who defeated sin and death - there is a new source of power coursing thru the veins of my soul, the same Power which created everything out of nothing and which sustains a billion trillion stars, limitless, inexhaustible, power to move mountains and love enemies and bring heaven down to earth.  Tap into just a tiny morsel of this divinely-powered stuff, and I have enough power to... do all things (Philippians 4.13).  Do we believe this?

Ephesians 6:9 - The Mindset of A Leader

"And the lords, the same things be doing towards them, giving up the threatening, having known that the Lord of both them and of you is in heaven and favoritism is not with Him."

-Lords, do the same things to them, to your slaves, towards those who in a free society serve under your authority.  These ‘same things’ are good things (v. 8) done with good will - AS TO THE LORD (v. 7), with fear and trembling (v. 6).  So obviously we are talking about those in authority who are God-fearing, who understand that there is a God in heaven with Whom I have to do, Who sees everything I do and knows every intention of my heart, and Who will hold me accountable for how I have treated those under my authority.  And so the way I lead them, speak to them, care for them, I strive to do so in a way that pleases the Lord of heaven, Who happens to be the ultimate Lord of anyone who might be serving under whatever authority He has entrusted to me.  It is a divine stewardship, and He will certainly hold me accountable.

-Paul specifically states that leaders are to give up threatening those under their authority.  A threat can be overt, but can also be more subtle.  Implied.  In truth a threat is a mechanism wielded by a maniac (cf Acts 9.1), specifically an ego-maniac.  To employ a threat is abusive and manipulative and excessive use of my power (God’s power!) leveraged in order to more fully secure some desired action from another.  It has a narcotic effect on my mind, makes me feel good, better about myself.  It is fostered in a seedbed of perceived superiority, where I presume that I am somehow better than this person, possessing greater dignity or worth than they.  The reality may very well be that in my threat I trying to compensate for my own insecurity.  I am nothing more than a playground bully, grasping at a glimmer of greater size or power in an attempt to intimidate another and make myself feel better about me in the process.  Um, no way, says Paul.  Uh-uh.  In God’s eyes, we are equals.  The Lord of lords totally levels every playing field.  I am no better (cf Philippians 2.3-4).  This attitude I must keep in mind as I wield God’s authority - whatever authority I may happen to have over another person has come from above and has not come to me because I am God’s favorite or somehow better or special or more deserving than they.  God has put me in this position, yes, but it is His authority, His power which I wield, and I must wield it wisely, with humility and in good faith, with purity and patience and gentleness and self-control and mercy and goodness and consistency and without any tinge of hypocrisy or severity (cf Leviticus 25.43, James 3.17).  Grace be with me, and with us all...

Ephesians 6:8 - #ALL4U

"...having known that each one, if someone should do good, this he will receive from [the] Lord, whether slave or free."

-God sees.  God knows.  He sees all that we do, He fully knows every intention of our heart.  And He is faithful.  He does not forget, never, ever, photographic to the n-th degree.  Well, He does forget our sins when they are covered with Jesus’ blood, but He does not forget His Word, nor His people.  he nations, they forget God, the Lord their Maker, even His people have a long history of forgetting Him, His commands, His benefits - but the Lord, He never forgets, never forgets His children (Isaiah 49.15), His covenant (Jeremiah 50.5), never forgets to be gracious (Psalm 77.9), and He will never forget the good work and the love which we show towards others in His name (Hebrews 12.5).

-And yes, the Lord does repay - God is the consummate payback artist, and He is indeed a rewarder of those who seek Him (Hebrews 11.6).  Scripture is replete with the truth that there is a reward (Proverbs 9.17; Jeremiah 17.10; Matthew 10.42, 16.27, 19.29, 25.34; Luke 12.32; James 2.5; 2John 8; Revelation 11.18,  22.15).  It is affirmed repeatedly, held up as incentive for God’s people to faithfully persevere and endeavor to engage in good deeds.  There may be some ambiguity as to the exact nature of the reward - is it the pride and joy and praise of our Lord in eternity (cf Matthew 25.21), is it perhaps something tangible like a crown, a victor’s laurel wreath (Revelation 2.10, 1Peter 5.4, James 1.12, 2Timothy 4.8, 1Corinthians 9.25 - or are these even more metaphorical)?  Is the reward perhaps not even the Lord Himself, the glorious, brilliantly breathtaking and stunning Creator God, He of manifold perfections and Who outshines the brightest stars in the universe, more awesome to behold than a gazillion sunsets and seashores and mountains and canyons?  To be with Him for all eternity will surely be better than any other reward.  Regardless of the reward, know and be confident of this, would-be do-gooder - God sees.  He is watching, and He has something good in store for His people who are careful to keep Him in mind and give their all for Him in all that they do.  This house I’m cleaning, Lord - this one’s for You.  This food I’m preparing and serving, Lord - this one’s for you.  This class I’m taking, this class I’m teaching, Lord - for You.  This thing I am being asked to do, Lord - this one’s for You.  They’re all for You...

Ephesians 6:7 - Going vertical

-’...slaving with good will as to the Lord and not to people...’

-What if Jesus asked you to do something?  Christ-follower, if the Lord of heaven and Savior of your soul appeared to you and asked you to do something, even something difficult or daunting, would you not readily and gladly do it?  With all your heart?  And tho' it were a cross I must bear, surely His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Matthew 11.30).  This then is the perspective I must bring to all I am asked to do by my God-ordained superiors in this life, that it is not in fact they who are doing the asking, but rather it is Christ Himself.  He is doing the asking, the Lord.  THE Lord.  Not some penny-ante operator.  He has all authority and power in heaven and earth.  That, and He is good, oh so good, breathtakingly so.  And He has good plans, plans to do good to us and our families and to the nations.  And as we come to know Him in this light, it is natural for us to want to do whatever He asks of us, readily, heartily.  He is our Master.  He is Who we serve.  He is Who we are ultimately serving when we submit to our authorities on earth and to one another.  Which means we can serve with good will.  The word literally means, ‘good mind’.  It all begins with our mind.  This is where we make the switch, our mindset shifts from serving on the horizontal level and goes vertical.  In our mind, now we are serving the King of heaven in whatever we do.

-So that supervisor who is harsh and unreasonable?  Throw that mental switch and shift to vertical.  Don’t focus on them.  Fix your eyes on Jesus.  Do what you are being asked to do as if Jesus is the One doing the asking.  That husband or parent who is so flawed?  Jesus.  That teacher who is making your life miserable?  Jesus.  Of course the caveat here is that we are doing things which fall under the category of what God wants.  We are not obeying authority which is asking us to do that of which the Lord does not approve.  But within that field of play, everything is fair game.  Do it for Jesus, as unto Him, and He’ll take care of the rest.  He’s got your back.  He’s got this.

Ephesians 6:6 - Audience of One

"...not according to eye service, as people-pleasers, but rather as slaves of Christ, doing the want of God out of soul..."

-Ours is a far different standard.  Polar opposites.  I do not do what I do to in order to be seen by men.  All this that I do is compelled by the love and example of my Savior, Who rescued me from death and bought me with His blood.  And tho I run surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, a mixed bag of cheers and jeers and indifference, I fix my eyes on Jesus, Who has His eyes fixed on me.  The apple of His eye.  I do all that I do to please Him, my true Audience of One.  I strive with every step and fiber of my being to live into what He wants.  For truly He is worthy of nothing less than all of this.  All of me.  At least, that's the idea.

-And yet a sad state of affairs, this.  According to eye-service.  I try to hide my shortcomings and shortfalls, while at the same time wanting to show off my successes and well-dones.  These I so want others to see, to be noticed and recognized by those around me, for them to be pleased with me, and this is how I feel better about myself.  Pleasing people, my peers, fellow pilgrims.  Such a vicious cycle, this - a trap and a lie of monumental proportions.  To expect the fallen imperfect selfish people around me to provide what I need in order to feel good about my work and about my own fallen imperfect selfish self is the height of absurdity.  Understandable, but I must march to a different drumbeat.  When I raise the bar and raise my sights and (begin to) do all that I do to please my Lord Jesus Christ, I am not only freed from the tyranny of being enslaved to the vagaries of the broken ones around me, I am empowered to live into the reality for which I was made.  I was made for this, to enslaved to Jesus Christ, to serve Him, to do whatever and all that He wants, and in the end, one day, to hear Him say, well done.  Well done, My good and faithful servant.  This is what my soul longs to hear.  The passing fleeting opinions of those around me carry momentary light weight in the here and now, but they are vapors, devoid of any real meaningful impact, except as the cheers (and jeers) may spur me on my course and as the race I run may point them also to the One Who also sees them and made them to find their highest satisfaction in Him. #AO1

Ephesians 6:5 - The Boss is watching...!

"The slaves, be obeying the lords according to flesh with fear and trembling in sincerity of your heart, as to Christ...’

-As to Christ.  As to Christ.  Just as if He were watching (which of course He is).  As if He could see everything I do and knew every motive of my heart (which He does).  I have one all-encompassing Lord in heaven - in a rather spiritual and metaphysical and very real and eternal sense He is the One with Whom I have to do constantly.  But physically speaking (in the flesh), I have others (who my Lord in heaven has placed) in authority over me, whom I must obey.  Obedience - listening under (to) them - looks much the same as it does for a child towards his parents.  Except even as an adult who serves under the authority and at the pleasure of another person, I find myself again in a place of brokenness.  (Like a child) I don’t always listen to them, or do what I am told.  I am all-too wont to try and mitigate the miseries of work - a true son of Adam trying desperately to minimize the consequences of the fall.  I am tempted to cut corners and monkey around and mail it in when (I think) the boss is not looking.  Or I roll my eyes and give it less than my all, a half-baked half-hearted one-cheek effort for a fallen superior.  Supervisor/manager/boss - they’re all imperfect.  Truth is, I’m not fooling anyone - everything I do "in hiding" is gonna come out some day, you can count on that (Luke 8.17).  But our bar is higher, true Christian, so much higher than that.  We serve the Lord, and He sees.  Constantly watching (over) us, we are the apple of His eye!  He sees us and cares about us.  And He cares about how we do what we do, because whatever we do, we do unto Him (cf Matthew 25.40, Matthew 25.45, Colossians 3.23, 1Corinthians 10.31, Colossians 3.17, 1Peter 4.11).  Yes.  Work.  Is.  Worship.  In every endeavor, including our work, He is worthy of everything we got, nothing less than our all.  We live and work in the constant presence of almighty God - we must get this thru our thick skulls, and let this truth transform our work.  It should not matter one hill of beans who is our boss or whether or not they are present and accounted for.  Christ is here, He showed up to work today, or whatever I am doing wherever I am doing it, and He is watching.  That simple, awesome truth should inspire circumspect awe - fear and trembling - and genuine, sincere obedience.  Because I am (or should be) doing it all for Him.

And now for something completely different:

Late one night, a burglar broke into a house that he thought was empty. He tiptoed through the living room but suddenly he froze in his tracks when he heard a loud voice say; “Jesus is watching you.”

Silence returned to the house, so the burglar crept forward again. “Jesus is watching you,” the voice boomed again.

The burglar stopped dead in his tracks. He was frightened. Frantically, he looked all around the room. In a dark corner, he spotted a bird cage and in the cage was a parrot. He asked the parrot: “Was that you who said Jesus is watching me?”

“Yes,” Said the parrot.

The burglar breathed a sigh of relief, then asked the parrot: “What is your name?”

“Clarence,” said the bird.

“That is a dumb name for a parrot,” sneered the burglar. “What idiot named you Clarence?”

The parrot said, “The same idiot who named the rottweiller Jesus.”

Ephesians 6:4 - On family priests and familial infidelity

"And the fathers, do not be angering your children but rather be nourishing them in instruction and admonition of [the] Lord.’

-The command for dads here is to be doing the exact same thing for their kids that they are to be doing for their wives - be nourishing them constantly, regularly, daily even.  Be feeding them and helping them to grow, not just physically, providing food and other necessaries, but spiritually, feeding their hearts from the Word of God, teaching them about Him and instructing them how to follow and live for Him and admonishing them to do so and to love Him with their whole heart.

-Sadly, in the aftermath of the fall, this relationship is also broken and cursed.  Dads tend to not nourish their children, spiritually, if at all.  They’ve simply abdicated their responsibility, all too often way too absent.  Mom, or the grandparents, are left to do the heavy lifting.  The Sunday School teacher and the youth group leader wind up doing whatever nourishing takes place.  Dad is gone, altogether abandoning his kids (and wife), or he is barely present, rarely home or engaging with the kids, more inclined towards work and golf and tv and other forms of familial infidelity.  And when he is home, when he does engage, it is all too often with too heavy a hand, harsh, impatient, uncompassionate, and angry - venting the rage residing in his heart, spawned there by his own dad before him.  Wounded dads wounding their own kids, a vicious cycle played out and repeated in many a home.  Your own dad surely messed up.  He hurt you somehow.  He lashed out from his own place of woundedness.  He was absent.  He was unengaged.  He was shut down emotionally.  Maybe he was gone altogether.  But there is hope.  The cycle can be broken.  And it begins with me.  One dad, taking up the mantle of priest.  Yes, I am the spiritual leader of my family, my wife and my kids.  I nourish their souls with the Word of God.  I first feed my own soul, feasting regularly on God’s Word, sitting at the feet of Jesus and lingering before the throne of heaven, finding sustenance for my soul and for that of my entire family.  And then I set the table and prepare a feast for them.  Man up, men - let the Lord take and heal your own woundedness and let Him shore up and overcome your brokenness, let Him feed you and nourish you and empower you so that you can engage with your kids and your wife and regularly help lead them heavenward from a place of Christ-like humilty and gentleness.  Yes, just like Jesus (Matthew 11.29).  Be a glimpse of Jesus for them every day.  Help them learn about the Lord every day, by your words and by your example.