November 12 2025

Wednesday November 12

“The Eternal Purpose”

Ephesians 3:11-13

According to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him. Therefore I ask that you do not lose heart at my tribulations for you, which is your glory.

Today in Ephesians 3, we're talking about the mystery of the church. The word mystery is used at least six times in the New Testament to refer to the church that was born on the day of Pentecost. In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit would come upon people and anoint them to do special deeds, great works such as Samson did. But in the New Testament, something new takes place. Something that was hidden in the Old Testament. The Holy Spirit would not only come down upon the people and upon the church (Acts 2:1-4), but He would enter the hearts of the believers and dwell there and never leave.

The Holy Spirit might be grieved (Ephesians 4:30), and He might be quenched (1 Thessalonians 5:19), but the Holy Spirit will still be there. Our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, the temple of God. 1 Corinthians 6:19:20. My friend, we need to believe and understand this truth, this truth of the mystery of the church, being born on the day of Pentecost, is now God's agency, God's institution that He is using to spread the Good News, the Gospel to let the world know that by faith you can have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. The church is in God's agenda and God's plan that “according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord”.

This great mystery and truth was important to Paul (vv. 1-5). It was important to the Gentiles that now they could be one with the Jews and be one in Christ together (vv. 6-8). It was important to the angels (vv. 9-10).  And as we've been seeing through this chapter, it is also very important to the believers that today we should understand this great truth. When God saved Paul, He deposited with him the precious treasures of the Gospel truth (1 Timothy 1:11). Paul in turn committed these truths to others and exhorted them to commit the truths to faithful men who would guard and share them (2 Timothy 2:2).  And in those apostolic days, the truth of the church was being made manifest in such a way that everywhere everyone went and they knew as they became a part of that local body of believers, the body of Christ, that they were a part of something special and they had a plan and program. They had a mission to be on with God, and they turned the world upside down for Jesus Christ (Acts 17:6). And in a very wicked, evil, cruel world, things changed because of the church.

Today, I believe that the same thing is happening again. I really believe in these last days before Jesus Christ comes again. This great truth, the mystery of the church should be important to us today as we study through the Scriptures. We know that this “mystery” is the key to what God promised in the Old Testament. What Christ did in the gospels, what the early church did in the book of Acts, what Paul and the other writers teach in the epistles, and what God will do as recorded in the book of Revelation. God's program today is not the headship of Israel, Deuteronomy 28:1-13, but the headship of Christ over the church. We today are under a different leadership, dispensation, if you want to call it that, from that of Moses and the prophets. We must be careful not to confuse what God has clarified.

The reason so many churches are weak and ineffective because they do not understand what we have and what they have in Jesus Christ. Spiritual leaders have not been good stewards of this mystery. They've not rightly divided the word of truth, and they've confused their people concerning their spiritual position in Christ and they robbed the people of their spiritual wealth in Jesus Christ. Oh my friend, this great truth concerning the church is not a divine afterthought. It is part of God's eternal purpose in Christ (Ephesians 3:11).

“According to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him”. So Paul says, “I ask that you do not lose heart at my tribulations for you which is your glory”. When we know this truth, we will have boldness and access with great confidence into the Holy of Holies, into the presence of God, and to go forward against the gates of hell with the message of Jesus Christ.

Oh, my friend, today, like Paul, we ask that you don't lose heart over what our spiritual leaders and the people of God might suffer on behalf of sharing this good news with the others in the world. This passage of scripture should encourage us today to give our all to Christ, live for Him, and let His Gospel be known to the world around us.

God bless!