Jul 4, 2022
Are you ever tempted to focus on what you don't have? How rich is God, anyway?
Hi, I'm Mike Henry Sr. with Follower of One. Thanks for joining me again today on the Follower of One podcast. I believe this podcast will air on what is independence day in the United States. I hope that you are taking a day off and enjoying the independence of our nation if you're in the United States, and for those of you who are outside the United States, let's enjoy some freedom in Christ. I wanna spend a few days talking about abundance. And "The Abundance Mentality" is a book that I just read by friends of mine, Sean Kouplen, and Mick Schovanec. And I want to challenge you with this abundant mindset some of us are a little hesitant to even talk about this idea because there's so much of what would be called the prosperity gospel - that we do and follow Jesus, and we do these things so that He will bless us in this world and in the next. I believe Jesus blesses us so that we will bless others. I believe some of that is found here in this passage that I hope to talk about for the next few days.
And that's Ephesians 3:13-21. I'm gonna read 13, 14, and 15, and we're gonna actually talk about verse 16 today. "Therefore, I ask you not to lose heart at my tribulations on your behalf, for they are your glory. For this reason, I bow my knees before the father. From whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. That he would grant you according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his spirit in the inner man." That's Ephesians 3:13-16 in the 1995 New American Standard Version.
Our focus here is that God would grant you according to the riches of His glory. To be strengthened with power through His spirit in the inner man. Paul's actually asking a special blessing on the people in Ephesus. He's asking them not to lose heart at his trouble because his troubles are part of their glory. And then he prays to God, that God would grant the Ephesians, according to the riches of His glory. I always catch that phrase there. A few translations use "out of," but I believe according to is the right word here. When you look at the Greek word, it means in accordance with, or in proportion to.
That God would grant us according to the riches of His glory means that we're not just getting some of His pocket change. We're getting something proportionate to the riches of His glory. And how rich is God anyway? And these riches are there to strengthen us with His power through His spirit, in our inner man. The point of this entire passage, and we will be talking for a few days about this, is God gives us this abundant blessing, and that is to be a blessing in our world. We're strengthen with power through His spirit in our inner man. God wants us to be fountains of living water. He wants us to be a blessing to the people around us. And Paul is putting together this broad blessing prayer to the Ephesians and to all of us who are downstream of this so that we would have Christ's power through His spirit in our inner self.
We'll talk more about why in the next few days, so be sure to tune in again tomorrow, a little bit of a teaser there. But I wanna challenge us today to remember that the situation that we're in, we have a blessing for us that's out of the riches of God's glory. He's blessed us and put us in a position to be a blessing to others. And today we have the opportunity to serve others and to give to others beyond what we can imagine simply because we follow Jesus. Why not take a moment right now and ask God to show you who you can help move one notch closer to Him today.
That's our challenge as Marketplace Ministers. Thanks for being a Marketplace Minister, and thanks for joining us on the Follower of One podcast. Please share this with your friends and check out our online community at https://community.Followerofone.org.
Thanks very much.