By the Will of God

Ephesians 1:1
“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are at Ephesus and who are faithful in Christ Jesus:”

As with many of his letters, Paul begins by recognizing himself as an apostle of Christ Jesus.
We see Paul, formerly known as Saul, miraculously saved in Acts 9:1-22, and the resurrected Christ himself tells Paul that he is his “chosen instrument” to bear his name before the Gentiles. Throughout the book of Acts we see many of his journey’s, numerous triumphs of the gospel as people are saved, as well as the life of suffering that he led for the sake of God’s great name. During all of these times, he wrote many letters that make up much of what we know as the New Testament. Paul was the 12th apostle of Christ Jesus, and he recognized himself as “one untimely born.”, because Christ appointed him as an apostle after he had already ascended to the Father.
There could be pages and pages dedicated to talking about this man, and I am sure that someone else could write much more eloquently and give much better information than I have in this short paragraph. But I want us to see something that we must take from this verse.

To begin this letter, Paul customarily introduced himself and he did so calling himself an “apostle.” This great man of the faith could have talked about all the things he had endured thusfar in his life for the sake of Christ and his name. He could have mentioned the fact that apostles were the men chosen directly by the Lord and this makes him a very important man. But he instead does not focus so much on the fact that he was an apostle, but on how he became one: “by the will of God.” It was not his own will that made him an apostle, but God’s alone. If it were not for God’s sovereign act of electing, choosing, and pursuing Paul he would have never been saved, much more an apostle, and he would have kept on persecuting the Christian church.

Let this be a lesson to me, and to all of us, when we think about the great salvation given to us in Christ. Let us adore God and fall at the cross in worship when we realize that we had absolutely nothing to do with our being saved. I believe that most of us will fight hard for the biblical truth of God’s sovereingty in all things, including salvation, but when we live we act as though we are of some credit for it.
This must stop! Do you thank him? Do you worship him for his great grace in calling you out of darkness into his marvelous light, apart from any power of you’re own.
Let us learn from Paul here. And when we mention our great salvation to others, when we think about it, when we pray, when we eat or drink, when we live our lives, when we die…..let us give God glory and praise him for saving us. Being in a continuous state of awe that before Genesis 1:1, before “God created the heavens and the earth,” we were elected unto salvation in Christ Jesus our Lord.