The day with dianne Louise

I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Ephesians 3:16,17 The scripture is full of love if we can but see it. Our God loves us so much that He longs to impute to us His strength in our inner being. I can be strong mentally, I can be strong physically but if I am strong in my inner being then I can stand against anything that comes my way. This strength comes from Him. I must live out of this well, not my mental capacity or my physical stature because the strength in my inner man is pure and undefiled. All other strength leads to self-righteousness and arrogance yet both of these when controlled by the spirit are humble and not spruiked about. The strength from the spirit brings life to all around us but the flesh brings condemnation and stench. Christ dwells in my heart through my faith. As I yield more and more to Him, as I trust Him and lean on Him my f...

His (God's) intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realm Ephesians 3:10 My mind imagines the foul beasts that endeavour to control the heavens being really irked by God's people as they move as one under Christ the head. What we fail to realise is that as we practice the 'deep magic' as CS Lewis put it in the Tales of Narnia we pull down the works of darkness. Their buttresses and towers come crashing down as the saints of God walk in faith, truth and love. Our God, who is for us, watches with delight. We release such authority into the spirit realm as we practise truth and authority for righteousness to be established over all. The Kingdom of God takes territory from the enemy as we are faithful to marriage, friends, business relationships, family. No weapon can stand against the mighty army of God's people walking in truth washed in the blood of the lamb. The truth...

In Him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in Him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit. Ephesians 2:21,22 He is building us, it is He who draws us to maturity. I remember having an ambition to produce a stained glass window. It was a reasonably large project and I gave a year to it. I had to choose my design, choose my glass, draw out the design as a template and begin to cut the glass to fit that template. The finished product was a work of art. My God takes His time in crafting His house. He chooses His people with a view of what He will do with them, begins to work on them, cutting out the shape He has in mind. He then places us in His masterpiece. The leadlight held my glass pieces together, He is the glue that holds us together, He provided the nails. The important thing we, the pieces, have to remember it is He who builds and it is He who matures and grows us up into His house....

For He Himself is our peace, who has made the two (Jew and Gentile) one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in His flesh the law with it's commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in Himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace and in this one body to reconcile them to God through the cross, by which He put to death their hostility. Ephesians 2:14-16 This act of love not only set the Jew free but invited the Gentile into relationship with God. The Jew had grown up under a burden of law and Jesus fulfilled the law's requirements by dying on the cross. Paul is saying 'all the old is finished, completed'. Have you ever finished paying a debt and perhaps it has taken several years and during that time you have struggled to meet the repayments, they have seemed onerous but you have made it? When the final payment was made what a release you felt. Now wouldn't it be crazy to keep on making those payments ...

For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 1:10  I come back to this verse as the whole scripture is full of richness but this is sticking out to me. There is a task I am destined for, there are things that the Lord has uniquely allotted to me. When I was a child my mother would take me to the dressmaker and have a dress made, tailored just for me. I remember one such dress, a formal dress for a special occasion. The material was a shiny blue, I loved it, it made me feel like a princess. That dress would fit me better than anyone else because it was made to measure. It suited my blue eyes, it made me shine. The dress was lovingly crafted just for me. Getting the picture? My God loves me so much more and He has crafted works that He knows I am the perfect fit for, I shine in them, they suit me down to a tee. Each one of us is so loved by our God, He has chosen works that are such a blessing in ou...

You are saved by grace! Together with Christ Jesus He also raised us up and seated us in the heavens, so that in coming ages He might display the immeasurable riches of His grace through His kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God's gift- Ephesians 2:5-9 I am so, so grateful that I do not have to earn my salvation. Jesus was perfect and he paid the perfect sacrifice so that I can live in the results of that grace, freedom, exaltation and relationship. I don't know about you but every time I feel self-righteous I have been doing something to earn my salvation. It stinks and I have to repent because there is nothing I can do that comes near what He has done. I cannot crucify Him again or say His sacrifice does not cut it. The difference is I am saved for good works. I am set free from having to earn my salvation so that I can, in freedom, be His ambassador. I have something I am meant to do in the Kin...

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world according to the ruler who exercises authority over the lower heavens, the spirit now working in the disobedient. Ephesians 2:1,2 I remember the first time I watched 'The Matrix' I saw a picture of how the 'ruler of the lower heavens, Satan' blinds the eyes of many so that they do not see truth. The graphic illustration of how the enemy binds and blinds was so real. The humans in that story were bred in capsules so that they would provide energy for the robots. When we walk in blindness to the freedom in Christ that is offered we provide our enemies an outlet for living. Without Christ we are taken over by various lusts, habits, attitudes and cannot break free, we are in fact in bondage and needing a saviour. Christ sets us free from being used and if we again find ourselves in that place we can go to Him for forgiveness and deliverance. The reason forg...