Read Ephesians 1:1-23. Verse 18 But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased Him.
You’re planning a dinner party to honor a celebrity. You go over the guest list carefully, weighing the interests of each person in relation to the others, in order to determine who should sit next to whom. You come to John Doe who is new to you. You’ve invited him because your honored guest is staying temporarily in this man’s home. Thinking of him you ask yourself, Will he fit? It turns out, he fits right in! This matter of fitting in is dealt with in God’s Word. In several places, we find that believers in the Lord Jesus Christ are referred to, corporately, as the body of Christ. Totally unfractured by denominationalism, this happy company includes all who declare their faith in the risen Savior. In this living, spiritual organism, each member has a place and a function distinctly his own. The question now is two-fold: Where do I fit in? and How do I fit in? The where is dealt with in such passages as Romans 12:4-8, Ephesians 4:11-13, and 1 Corinthians 12:18. In the days to come, we’ll examine here in Ephesians how we fit in. If we confine ourselves only to Ephesians 1, and if for the sake of the individual application we use the personal pronoun, we shall see that in these verses God is amazingly at work in the following ways: God welcomes me, God works for me, God gives to me, and God strengthens me. As a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, my induction into the body of Christ, my placement there for service, and my part in the total fulfillment of the divine purpose are all God’s gracious doing.
This devotional was written by Dr. Robert A. Cook. You can subscribe to his free email articles and listen to his Spirit-filled 15-minute messages at www.walkwiththeking.org. Used with written permission.
