I borrowed the title of this message from Apostle Paul’s letter to the “saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus”. (Ephesians 1:1 and 2:12).
Everyone in the world has a past. Interestingly, the past of some is often the present of others, as was the case for these Ephesians brethren in Christ. They used to be in the same spiritual situation as their fellow countrymen, but everything changed for them when they encountered Jesus Christ in the ministry of Paul. May the same be your portion in Jesus’ name!
Apostle Paul calls them “saints” but that is not what they used to be. You need to understand that they were not born saints and there was nothing about their lives that could have qualified them to sainthood, as it were, just like anyone out there reading this post….
Talking about their past apostle writes, “Remember that at that time you were separated from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.” (Ephesians 2:12)
The most remarkable thing about this passage is that it was written to Ephesians! You need to turn to Acts 19 to understand the significance of this point.
See, Ephesians were with gods in the world yet, Paul said, they were without God. It is possible to be misled in religion. Ephesians had their own “religious practices and beliefs”. They had a goddess named Artemis “the great goddess” whose temple was in Ephesus (did you know that the Roman Catholic’s worship of Mary started in Ephesus?).
A riot rose against Apostle Paul after his ministry led many to Jesus Christ through mighty healings, deliverances from evil spirits…. In the process, Paul is said to have described Artemis and the other gods Ephesians believed as “man-made gods who are no gods at all” and his ministry proved his claim to be true.
Paul was the kind of ministers who do not beat around the bush, as it were. Obviously, he had no concern for “political correctness” or cultural and religious sensitivity. His only concern was to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ in order to getting as many people as possible to escape hell and the dominion of darkness and into the kingdom of God. He simply spoke the truth and it almost cost him his life, no wonder.
It is interesting to note that Paul’s message, the gospel, threatened the business interests behind the worship of Artemis. Obviously, it was not really concern for the salvation of souls, but rather the sake of maintaining the “religion” and what it meant for business that motivated the hostile reaction against Paul.
Let me remind you that God with capital g (G) in the bible means independent dependable, and, god with small g (g) means dependent undependable.
Let me clarify: God is dependable because he is independent (no power above him) by his very being – he is self-sustaining and sovereign. He does whatever he pleases. God is the uncreated creator and nothing is that was not created by God.
It means that anyone who does not worship and serve God the creator, the living God, thereby devotes his life to a dependent and, therefore, not-dependable entity. Hence, Apostle Paul describes Ephesians before coming to Christ as without hope and without God in the world. True, they believed in Artemis and many other gods but who failed them at serious crises points in their lives until they met Jesus Christ who made them free of their various predicaments.
No one can care more about you than your creator. I pray that you will depend on the dependable one, the one and true God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
