Week 1: God’s Eternal Purpose and His Economy
II. God selected and predestinated many people to be His sons – Eph. 1:4-5:
A. We were chosen by God the Father to be holy – Eph. 1:4:
1. This is for us to partake of God the Father’s holy nature to be made the same as God in nature – 2 Pet. 1:4; Rom. 15:16; cf. Rev. 21:2.
2. This is to be sanctified, separated from all things, as God is, and saturated with God – Rom. 15:16; cf. Rev. 21:2:
a. We need to love God and not love the world (1 John 2:15), being separated from the world by God’s word of truth (John 17:14-19; Eph. 5:26), not being fashioned according to this age (Rom. 12:2a).
b. We need to present ourselves to God to be saturated by God with the element of His holy nature (Rom. 6:19) unto the eternal life (v. 22) to be renewed by the Spirit for our transformation into the image of Christ (Titus 3:5b; Rom. 12:2b; 2 Cor. 3:18).
Ephesisans 1:4-5 Even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blemish before Him in love, 5 Predestinating us unto sonship through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,
2 Peter 1:4 Through which He has granted to us precious and exceedingly great promises that through these you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption which is in the world by lust.
John 17:17 Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.
Romans 12:2 And do not be fashioned according to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and well pleasing and perfect.
2 Corinthians 3:18 But we all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit.
Read over the outline points and verses above and use these for your prayer to spend time with the Lord in the Word in the morning. After your prayer time, jot down in your notebook one or two things that the Lord touched you with.
Later, watch the following short video podcast sometime during the day.