Go deeper with others.

As we continue our study of Ephesians, Paul offers a passionate prayer that his fellow believers would experience not just the presence of the Holy Spirit, but the active power of the Spirit in their daily lives. The message presses a vital truth: a Christian can “have” the Spirit and yet live without (“have not”) his power, much like a house fully wired for electricity but cut off from the grid. The path from powerless to powerful runs through understanding, experience, and a deliberate drawing close to God through community, prayer, obedience, and surrender to Christ.

In Ephesians chapter 2, the Apostle Paul confronts one of humanity’s most persistent and divisive challenges: how we see and treat those we label as “others.” Drawing on the image of a literal stone wall in Jerusalem’s Temple that separated Jews from Gentiles, Paul declares that Jesus demolished every such “wall of hostility” through his death on the cross. The result isn’t merely improved tolerance between groups, but the creation of one entirely new people: a family bound together by their identity in Christ – the identity that supersedes every racial, national, economic, or political identity we carry.

(Ephesians 1:3-14) – Most of us instinctively avoid checking what we fear will disappoint us—but in Christ, the opposite is true. We are richer than we know. Ephesians 1 pulls back the curtain on what God has already deposited into the lives of those who belong to Jesus. In a world that often feels random, fragile, and exhausting, Paul gives us three stabilizing truths: we have something to look forward to, someone we can count on, and someone we can surrender to.