Spring into God's Love

Written by Paul Griffitts


Spring is springing here inrepparttar Pacific Northwestrepparttar 126500 plants and trees are blooming. We are fast approachingrepparttar 126501 Christian celebration of Easter Sunday and if my Catholic is correct we should be in Lent right now.

Lent is a Catholic season of soul-searching and repentance. Lent is a time for reflection and taking a good look at what our lives are all about. By observingrepparttar 126502 forty days of Lent,repparttar 126503 individual Catholic imitates Jesus' withdrawal intorepparttar 126504 wilderness for forty days. This would account forrepparttar 126505 gesture of, "Giving up something for Lent".

I was Catholic when I was growing up in New York City, back then giving up something for Lent which started forty days before Easter Sunday, kicked off by Ash Wednesday, (which is a whole other story in itself) I tried my hardest to give up something I really liked, something like RC Cola. It never worked and mainly because I didn't understand why I was giving something up.

Today I understand it and in some twisted wayrepparttar 126506 symbolic gesture of giving up something we like betweenrepparttar 126507 days ofrepparttar 126508 passion and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ seems like a good idea since our Heavenly Father gave up His only begotten Son for our sinsrepparttar 126509 least we can do is take a break from Starbucks Lattes or something like that.

Christians Find Untold Riches

Written by Paul Griffitts


Ephesians 3:8 Unto me, who am less thanrepparttar least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach amongrepparttar 126499 Gentilesrepparttar 126500 unsearchable riches of Christ.

This wonderful verse taken fromrepparttar 126501 pinnacle ofrepparttar 126502 Epistles begins with a figure of speech, in which Paul belittles himself in order to draw attention to something very great and important. This is a common figure of speech called Litotes or Meiosis defined as a phrase that understates or lessens one thing in order to magnify another. Paul denigrates himself in order to magnify God’s grace.

Paul in Ephesians chapter two told howrepparttar 126503 Jewish and Gentile remnant of believers fromrepparttar 126504 former dispensation had been made into one new man. He spoke of them all together as Gentiles (See 3:1; 4:1). It is to this new man that Paul proclaims his message.

The theme of Paul's message amongrepparttar 126505 Gentiles isrepparttar 126506 unsearchable riches of Christ. When making a comparison ofrepparttar 126507 structure in this section, we see this expression is balanced byrepparttar 126508 mystery of Christ in verse 4.

Now sincerepparttar 126509 mystery of Christ has been steadily unfolding from Genesis 1:1 up tillrepparttar 126510 dispensation ofrepparttar 126511 mystery completes it, we have alsorepparttar 126512 unfolding of His riches, their wealth and abundance.

In Genesis 1:1 He isrepparttar 126513 Creator, and therefore owner ofrepparttar 126514 universe by right of creation. We meet with such expressions as "The earth isrepparttar 126515 Lord's, andrepparttar 126516 fullness thereof", "The world is Mine andrepparttar 126517 fulness thereof", and many like expressions. It would take years to search out allrepparttar 126518 ascriptions of honor, and glory, and power, and many other attributes, all of which are a part of His fathomless wealth and are never capable of being fully traced out.

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