Jesus the Access in the Spirit to the Father

For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. (Ephesians 2.18)

Unrestricted access to the presence of the triune God. Through Jesus we find ourselves redeemed from our sin and infilled with His Spirit, indwelling our lives. Through Jesus we walk, Spirit empowered and electrified to life, into the very presence of the Father. We have direct access to the most holy of holies, the sanctified nearness of our triune God.

Like the select few priests bringing the offering of the people before the ark of God's covenant we all now can enter in. We are washed clean in the blood of Jesus and can enter where millions before us could only dream. We are not bound to outer courts. We are not restricted to stand by the wash basin or look on as the priests walked into the clouds of incense and smoke through the folds of the Tabernacle. In Jesus, our access to the Father is complete. He leads us in where there is no separation between us and the almighty God.

Let us tremble in joy, shake with the uncontainable elation of our unbarred admission. We are living the fulfilled promise God made to His people they dreamed of as they ascended to the Temple. As we trust in Him we cannot be removed from His everlasting presence. We are surrounded by our Sovereign God as a city nestled among the mountains. If we can even open our mouths to speak, let us utter words of deepest rejoicing for His unmerited mercy and enduring grace. We stand shoulder to shoulder with the redeemed generations with tears of joy and raptured hearts bursting.

Jesus, I rejoice in you. You have brought me near to the cross and redeemed me from my damning sin. I now stand restored and made new before the Father in the Spirit.

Jesus the Peace

For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility (Ephesians 2.14)

Jesus is our peace. Can we truly grasp the depth of this simple phrase? Jesus is our peace. If we have a weak understanding of the devilishness and viciousness of our sin we might devalue this awesome truth. For those who have lived, visibly bound in sins like drug abuse or invisibly enslaved under the victimizing hand of sexual abuse, the peace Jesus offers in Himself is breath-taking. The eyes that shook from a desperate need for comfort find true peace in Jesus. The eyes that wept from the cruel exploitation find the true embrace of God’s love in Jesus.

Jesus our peace aims across the battlefield of our souls and raises His mighty arm to kill the hostility that separates us from His love. In His incarnate arms He breaks the back of sin and death that makes our access to His eternal peace unreachable. There is no rigid observance of regulations that seeks to find its way to pacifism. Jesus Himself is our peace. We, the redeemed people of God, need not memorize the walls of history's hedge laws for we have found the sole source of reconciliation to God the Father: Jesus our peace.

Every thing we do flows from love not fear, joy not fatalism, hope not resignation. Our good deeds flow from peace not performance. Our good intentions are rooted in peace not anxiety over our future. We do not scrounge for crumbs of goodwill with God. No, we are carried to the table where we take the bread broken for us for the redemption of our sins. Peace. True Peace. Jesus.

Jesus, thank you that you are my peace. I have no fear in the battles and wars to come for you are my Sovereign, my Lord, my everlasting Peace.

Jesus the Retriever

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ (Ephesians 2.13)

Can we remember a time we were rejected? The feeling of isolation. Distance, impassible ever-widening distance. Does anyone make it through childhood without feeling the sting of being faraway, out of place, the awkward other. Different people seek out various ways to move toward a place of communal belong. One builds walls around his soul to protect from the stinging arrows, another adopts the slings of others and mocks rather than be mocked. Whether we find a way to be grafted into society or a left on the abandoned fringe we can still feel damaged and alone.

And yet this loneliness, this emotional distance, is nothing compared to our soul’s separation from God. There is no set of actions we can perform to reap redemption, no number of prayers that can bridge the metaphysical expanse between His holiness and our fallenness. We were far off across the impassable ocean of our sin.

And then Jesus. We have been reclaimed by the Creator. We are redeemed, not by the sweat of our brows doing the good deeds, but through the poured out blood of Jesus. Jesus is our retriever. Jesus calls us from isolation into relationship. Jesus has caused the divine spark in our souls to be rekindled. Jesus is bringing about our becoming. We are becoming more of ourselves as we decrease and He increases. The closer we are brought near to Him the more we are shaped into the unique diamonds He foresaw us to be.

Jesus, thank you for drawing me near, for seeing me far off and alone and calling me into your arms.

Jesus the Master Craftsman’s Tool

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2.10)

It never ceases to amaze that we have been made with purpose and intention. There was no haphazard accident that produced each and every individual through the course of human history. The same deliberate care that God took forming Adam from the dust, shaping Eve from his side, is the same intentional loving care with which God shaped and formed us in our mothers’ wombs. Our Father is a loving and conscious creator. Just as the painter takes each stroke into mind as He brings images to life so the Father shaped our personalities through His Son Jesus. Just as the composer pens each note, every inspired trill carefully placed on the sheet so the Father placed the impressions of Jesus onto the sheet music of our souls.

Jesus is the tool that our Divine Master Craftsman used to create us. Every man, woman and child have been made in the loving hand of the Father. Jesus is the etching tool that cuts through the clay of our mere existence and gives our lives purpose. As we baked in the kiln of this life each symbol, each expression of Jesus’ beauty is fired on to our form.

And this is where Jesus’ work becomes all the more rich. We have not only been made, we have been made useful, made functional, made intentionally for a purpose. We have been made in Jesus for good works, expressing the love of the Father and the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit before the nations.

Jesus, as I look over my life today I can see where you have been at working cutting away and creating, shaping me and producing holiness in my life. I rejoice that I have been created in you.

Jesus the Cornerstone

Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. (Ephesians 2.20b-21)

Leading up to these verses the Apostle Paul has been showing us how we are fellow citizens of God’s household, a family set apart and joined together from scattered people groups. Separated at birth, marked by different tribes and trained in diverse tongues, we are now being restored as a unified family. All of a sudden Paul switches from family language to architecture and with this shift in metaphor he moves from the familial to the foundational. As members of God’s family we are now being joined together on a singular foundation around one enduring cornerstone.

This cornerstone will not shift, it will not change. No matter the circumstances around us the foundation of our faith, built on the inspired testimony of prophets and apostles, is aligned to the everlasting cornerstone, Jesus Christ.

How glorious it is to cast our eyes across the ages on this sacred temple we call the Church. Generations upon generations of men, women and children devoted to Christ have been hewn and formed and placed into alignment with that chief cornerstone, Jesus Christ. All the cathedrals standing today are but a shadow of that great Church Universal of saints filled with praise and worship. Stones of different shade and architecture crafted in diverse temporal design all remind us that we’ve seen nothing yet when we stop and think of the Holy Temple being joined together around Jesus the Cornerstone.

Jesus, thank you that you have placed me among the living stones of your people, joined together to you, our cornerstone.