I was rocking my 2-year-old daughter to sleep tonight. She had woken up because she had an "accident." She felt bad about it and let me know. I made sure to tell her that it was not a "no-no" and that I loved her very much. As I laid her down to sleep again, I felt a pang of pain in my heart. I wanted her to be assured of my love for her, not to have to make sure every time she had an accident.
Reading these verses again from a father's point of view gives it a different tone. As God is our father (which Paul mentions a few times in) and as Paul himself is a father to the church in Ephesus, I think it is an appropriate lens. In this verse, God gives me a guarantee of my inheritance in the form of His Holy Spirit. Like my daughter, I still find myself in doubt of my heavenly Father's love when I mess up.
I wonder what Paul means by inheritance? It must be pretty awesome if the Holy Spirit is only a down-payment for that inheritance. Seems like the inheritance is the world in which God unites all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
May I live more by the Spirit tomorrow and become a sign of our future inheritance.
by the will of God,
Jonathan
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