Be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. Eph.4:2

It may seem like a right to feel annoyed if someone’s faults cause inconvenience. It may even seem like extending patience and understanding when someone messes up is giving sin a pass. By making allowances we recognize how difficult it is to overcome our faults and what a huge part love and encouragement play in the process. Extending grace and patience helps us remember that none of us are perfect either.

Lord, thank you for the people who make allowances for my faults.

 Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception.  Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Eph. 4:21

Developing healthy personal disciplines and letting go of self-destructive habits and attitudes can only take us so far. Real transformation is no D.I.Y. project. We can’t transform ourselves we can only submit to God’s Spirit and let Him change us from the inside out.

Lord, help my heart and my behavior reflect the change and renewal You effect.

And the church is his body; it is made full and complete by Christ, who fills all things everywhere with himself. Eph. 1:23

With power and dominion, agency and intelligence, Christ fills the universe. His inconceivably vast presence fills all those in-between spaces between electrons and stars that only seem to be empty. The church is incomplete as an entity without His presence filling all the space between us, completing us as a body, binding us to one another.

Lord, fill every space and permeate every pore with Your presence.

For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world and against evil spirits in the heavenly places. Eph. 6:12

Hate, anger, greed, prejudice, selfishness, etc. is scary stuff, but people who have become ensnared in these behaviors are not the enemy. The true Enemy wants us to think these people are not salvageable. Love shoots holes in the darkness. The best way to fight evil is to love others and to do good with much grace.

Lord, protect me and help me to reflect Your light.

Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. Eph. 5:10

God has given us a whole book explaining what pleases Him and what doesn’t. He’s sent his Holy Spirit to lead us and convict us when we stray from His ways. He’s made His very presence available to us when we pray and worship so we can learn to hear His voice and recognize His pleasure.  If we bother to look, we can find out what what God likes; it’s more a matter of liking the same thing.

Lord, I know what You like, help me like it too.

For Christ himself has brought peace to us… he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us. Eph. 2:19

Jesus came to tear down the walls that keep us from being able to love one another as He loves us. Jesus does most of the demo. Rather than replacing the fallen stones, He weakens the wall so we can break through the remaining rubble of pride and prejudice, pain and fear that separate us from Him and others. His stated  purpose is to reconcile and unite us to Himself and to one another as citizen of His kingdom.

Lord, tear down all our heart walls.

Because of Christ and our faith in him, we can now come boldly and confidently into God’s presence. So please don’t lose heart because of my trials here. Eph. 3:12-13a

When we face dragon-sized problems and slay them with God’s help, we know there will be an epic story to tell about God’s glory and grace. Often, though, our trials are a conglomeration of mean little mosquito-like problems that annoy and distract and don’t seem to have much glory-bringing potential. God is just as pleased with us when we plow through the insects with grace and focus and He is just as present with us in our smaller struggles.

Lord, it’s not a big thing, but it’s a thing…help!

He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love. Eph. 4:16

The Kingdom of God can go viral when a group of individual believers experience synergy as a body and that body experiences synergy with Christ.  “Synergy” describes the process that occurs when two or more produce a result that isn’t individually obtainable. God’s kingdom runs on interdependence.

Lord, help me look outward and upward instead of  “me-ward.”

For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places. Eph.6:12

Other people are not our enemies. Just as grace and goodness originate from one unseen Source, evil and selfishness originate from another. Every person involved in evil is knowingly, or unknowingly, conscripted into the service of the Enemy. Like it or not, we are involved in an epic battle and our mission is search and rescue.

Lord, help me recognize and participate in this unseen epic.

However, he has given each one of us a special gift [or grace] through the generosity of Christ. Eph. 4:7

Sometimes the dip is so delicious that the chips don’t matter; they are merely dip-delivery vehicles. If we view our God-given gifts and talents as manifestations of the very grace of Christ, ego gets out of the way and we simply become grace-delivery vehicles. Our gifts and talents originate with Christ who gave them for both pleasure and purpose.

Lord, use my gifts and talents to bless and help others.

So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God’s holy people. You are members of God’s family. Eph. 2:19

When a couple gets married, the in-laws, who may have been  strangers before, become instant family and make adjustments toward accommodating those new relationships.  Christ’s transforming grace makes family out of people who were not family.  Becoming part of God’s church makes us more than just related, we now belong together.

Lord,  I love belonging to your family.

Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you. Eph 4:31-32

Mean people shift the spiritual atmosphere around them into reverse. We’re just idling in neutral if all we do is try not to be mean ourselves. Driving the kingdom of God forward requires that we supplant meanness with attitudes of deliberate and sometimes sacrificial kindness, encouragement, and empathy for others.

Lord, shift my love into high gear.

Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy. So stop telling lies. Let us tell our neighbors the truth, for we are all parts of the same body. And don’t sin by letting anger control you. If you are a thief, quit stealing. Instead, use your hands for good hard work, and then give generously to others in need. Don’t use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them. Eph. 4:24-29

Whether we choose constructive or destructive behavior we might feel like fakes because it is impossible to reconcile the new nature Christ gives us with our old habits and impulses which still seem like our real selves. Putting on the nature of Christ is more like a skin graft than a suit we can take on and off when it’s convenient. As we follow Christ and make choices based on his nature, even when we aren’t feeling it, we do begin to feel more comfortable and authentic in our own, new skins.

Lord, help me to do what You would do and to feel like doing it.

Because of Christ and our faith in him, we can now come boldly and confidently into God’s presence. Eph. 3:12

Certainly we should approach God with awe and reverence because He is, after all, God; but He also wants us to approach Him as a friend and a father.  His whole point in creating us, redeeming us, and making us eternal souls is so that we can always be in His presence. Whatever issue that holds us back from His presence is nothing He can’t fix, or hasn’t already fixed.

Lord, I want to find a place of familiar awe with You.

Work with enthusiasm, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people. Eph. 6:7

God’s mission statement is the Great Commandment that we love Him and others and the Great Commission that we bring others into His family. Everything we do toward accomplishing our goals and carrying out our plans at our particular jobs affects His mission. God is an awesome boss and he has a great work day planned for each of us.

Lord, give me the guidance and enthusiasm I need to accomplish the work I do and the work You are doing through me.

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. Eph. 2:10

Through Christ we are made the way God created us to be before we try to do anything to improve ourselves. It may seem non-linear to us, but God is not bound by time and neither is His work. We are becoming what He’s already made us and making choices to participate in the good that He’s already planned.

Lord, help me to be the new me.

Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Eph 3:17a

C. S. Lewis wrote that a stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world. In the times when our own hearts feel too small and limited we can know that our hearts are home to someone bigger than ourselves too. The vast, eternal person of Jesus Christ chooses to make a home in each of our hearts.

Lord, it’s definitely a fixer upper, but I want You to be at home  in my heart.

Their minds are full of darkness; they wander far from the life God gives because they have closed their minds and hardened their hearts against him. Eph 4:18

Our impulses can carry us into some pretty dark places where, eventually, wrong doesn’t seem wrong. We’re all prone to wander, often without even realizing we’re moving away from God. While our wandering is often unintentional, course correction usually takes a deliberate choice to open our minds and hearts to God.

Take my heart, Lord, take it, seal it for your courts above.

“Awake, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will give you light.” Eph. 5:14

Darkness makes us unable to see need or recognize evil around us. The light of Christ not only exposes evil for what it is, but also makes what is good absolutely dazzling. Wake up and see the wonder, be awed.

Lord, light up every dark place in my life.

And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. Eph 3:18

Any direction we go, God’s love reaches us. However we may try to measure His love, the answer is always “infinite.” We can put away our rulers, He loves us…and them.

Lord, thanks for Your love.