Dear Brothers and Sisters,

You are invited to come to the Wednesday evening prayer meeting and pray for the church (and other things -- 7:00 PM Wed., LHF time).

"As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace." (Eph. 4:1-3)

The apostle Paul is urging the Ephesian church, and us as well, to live a life worthy of the calling we have received. He says "THEN, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. To what does Paul's "then" (or "therefore") refer? And what calling have we received? Paul's "then" refers to just what he has told us up to this point in his letter. It's what God has called us to. I'll repeat a few of the things:

We are called to be called to be holy and blameless in his sight. (Eph. 1:4)

We are called (that is, predestined) to be adopted as God's sons (and daughters) to the praise of his glorious grace. (Eph. 1:5,6)

We are called to have forgiveness of sins lavished upon us through the blood of Jesus Christ by God's grace with all of his wisdom and understanding. (Eph. 1:7.8)

We were called from death to life and from being under his wrath to being under his mercy and grace -- to be raised up with Christ and to be seated with him in the heavenly realms. (Eph. 2:3-6)

We are called (that is, we are created in Christ Jesus) to do the good works which God has prepared in advance for us to do. (Eph. 2:10)

We are called to make God's manifold wisdom known to all the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms. (Eph. 3:10)

We are called to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge so that we will be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Eph. 3:19)

These are some of the thing we are called to. In summation, we are called to be the Church which is the body of Christ, the overflowing abundance, the wealth beyond measure and the full and perfect nature of God who fulfills and completes everything in every way.

In Ephesians, when Paul said "you", he was referring to the readers of his letter collectively, that is to the Church. Therefore, when I say "we are called" in referring to what Paul wrote, as I just did, I am also referring to the Church.

Paul says -- actually God says through Paul -- to us, the Church, "be worthy of the calling you have received." How can we be worthy of such a great calling --so marvelous a calling --a calling that is so far beyond anything we can, by any human understanding, expect from our own individual lives? He tells us how:

"Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace."

In the beatitudes in Matthew chapter 5 Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Matt. 5:3) and "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth." (Matt. 5:5) The poor in spirit are the humble. The word translated "poor" mean destitute, miserable, helpless and is used to refer to beggars. To be poor in spirit means to know that you are absolutely helpless and completely dependent on someone else. The poor in spirit know that they are completely dependent on God. The kingdom of heaven belongs to the poor in spirit.

In Matt. 5:5, the word that is translated "meek" is essentially the same word that is translated "gentle" in Eph. 4:2 -- "Be completely humble and gentle." To be gentle also means to be kind and considerate and friendly. When Paul tells us to be completely humble and gentle, he is telling us to act toward each other according to the knowledge that we are completely dependent on God for everything.

Paul also tells us to be patient, bearing with one another in love. "Patient" is literally "long-suffering" as the King James usually translates it. Anyone who has ever been stuck in a traffic jam knows about long-suffering. Impatience, the lack of long-suffering, comes from having your desire to control a situation (or to control other people) frustrated. If you are humble -- poor in spirit -- you don't have this problem. You know that God is in control of every situation and that Christ is the head of the Church, that is, that he is the head of other people in the Church).

In the phrase, "bearing with one another in love", "bearing with" means "putting up with" or "enduring". To bear with one another in love means to put up with each other with the attitude and spirit expressed in 1 Cor. 13:4-8a, which I'll quote:

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. (1 Cor. 13:4-13:8a)

Finally, we must make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. To "make every effort" means to make keeping the unity of the Spirit highest priority. You attend to keeping the unity of the Spirit before you do anything else. Other things of lesser importance have to fall by the wayside if they are going to interfere with keeping the unity of the Spirit. However, keeping the unity of the Spirit doesn't mean compromising the truth for the sake of "peace". Peace that comes through compromising the truth is meaningless and certainly will not be lasting. In the NIV and in other translations, in the phrase "unity of the Spirit", the translators capitalize "Spirit", showing that they understand Paul to be talking about the Holy Spirit of God. Unity of the Spirit means following the leading of God's Spirit. If we do that, we will have unity of the Spirit. Our example for "unity of the Spirit" is Jesus, who only did the things he saw his father doing. He had complete unity with God the Father. He and the Father were (and are) one. Jesus also prayed for all of us to be one as he and his Father were one. We can do the same thing.

To finish, I have a small rhyme to quote. Here it is:

"To live above with the saints we love,
         O, that will be glory;
To live below with the saints we know,
         Now that's another story."

If you can't figure out what the rhyme is about, you are excused from the prayer meeting. If you identify real well with it, come and pray for the church.

Come on Wednesday and pray for the Church. The Church is the overflowing abundance, the wealth beyond measure and the full and perfect nature of God who fulfills and completes everything in every way.

Grace and peace,
Dean Svoboda

PS: You can also bring you own prayer requests and pray for them with your brothers and sisters in Christ (i.e., with the Church). Bring your requests to God with thanksgiving and receive his peace.

PPS: Pass this invitation along to others in your household or to someone who doesn't have an e-mail address in the LHF directory