THE BOOK OF EPHESIANS CHAPTER 4:1-10 SHEOL / HADES / THE PLACE OF THE DEAD

Mike Balloun teaches today. 05/29/21

THE BOOK OF EPHESIANS CHAPTER 4:1-10
HEOL / HADES / THE PLACE OF THE DEAD

VERSES: 1st Corinthians 2:8; 2 Corinthians 5:6-11; Colossians 2:15; Psalm 22, 86:13; Luke 16

STUDY NOTES: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1gv51xooup248i4/AADRUZhS6Fo2M-4kK1rSoIAna?dl=0

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WALKING WORTHY OF YOUR VOCATION
The first 3 Chapters of Ephesians opens up before us the Mystery of the Heavenly Calling and our standing relative to it. The Chapters before us now speak to how we should “walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called.” What is of the utmost importance to the Holy Spirit, reflected in Paul’s “beseeching” (a stronger word than begging), is that a Christian has the full understanding of Scripture that walking worthy has to do with the fact that every Christian is going to stand before the ‘Judgment Seat of Christ’. (Romans 14:10, Revelation 22:12) And that this Bema is where each Christian will answer for his ‘works’ done after they were born again unto eternal life and incorporated into His Body, for which we are all granted or extended heavenly position with all its spiritual blessings. (Ephesians 1:3;2:6, 2nd Peter 1:3)

Although many Christians are generally aware of the need for service after becoming a Christian, they are woefully ignorant of what this critical walk in worthiness so as to attain unto the heavenly calling of reward is and also ignorant of what its potential loss with great consequences is. That ignorance results in hardly any advance in their walk for worthiness for they remain untrained children of God, dark in mind and hard in heart. (Ephesians 4:17-21… “This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But ye have not so learned Christ; If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus…”)

In the first verses of Ephesians 4, Paul continues to reveal the previously hidden purposeful realities of the Father’s calling in the unifying into one Body, in Christ, of all peoples and nations. From Christ Jesus/the Head comes the grace of the power to influence the heart of the believer and the gifts of the Holy Spirit unto the nurturing and maturing individually the Body’s members in selfless love. (Walking in unity and in grace and mercy with fellow brethren as seen in Ephesians 4:2-3… “With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Romans 5:5… "And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”) Everyone of us, who have received God’s gift of Redemption by faith in Christ Jesus throughout the 2000 years of this purposeful Age, have been granted the gift of the Divine Nature (in the rebirth of our spirit 2nd Peter 2:4) along with the provision/spiritual blessings of Grace and Mercy to meet the requirements of worthiness unto the prize of the High Calling, which is to be realized only in the First Resurrection. (Hebrews 4:16, Philippians 3:11-14) We have been given by Christ more than ample “goods” to prosper and we have no excuse for failing when the Master judges. (Matthew 25:14,24-30 with Ephesians 4:8 where it speaks of how Christ “…gave gifts unto man”, such as the gift of eternal life as well as the gift of the power of the Holy Spirit to walk in sanctification in order to walk worthy of our calling.)

In brief explanation of the believer’s spiritual windfall, Paul describes the unseen unparalleled journey of the Son of God and its resulting sealing and power to us again from a different perspective. (Compare Ephesians 4:7-10 with Ephesians 1:19-23… “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.”

“And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from.....

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