"Making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to untie all things to Him, things in heaven and on earth."
- Ephesians 1:9-10
Father, You bestowed upon us - in all wisdom and insight I might add (v. 8) - Your grace, and revealed to us Your will, which is this: Christ as a sacrifice to unite ALL things to You. You called/call this action "the fullness of time," which means that You are obsessed with what happened on that cross outside of Jerusalem. But to stop there would be odd, even slightly morbid, and especially befuddling as to our purpose in life. Fortunately, that day was only the beginning. That is because we are now in the "uniting all things to Him" stage. And we now have new mysteries being revealed to us daily by Your Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 2: 6-16)!!!
Another purpose of this passage is that it brings light to the true meaning of "predestination." Over in verse 5 of this chapter it says "He predestined us...according to the purpose of His will." We see this phrase repeated in verse 9, with an interesting clause following it: "which He set forth in Christ." Thus, His entire plan and will is Christ. His purpose was/is not to select a few of the "elect" to be with Him for eternity. His plan, in Christ, is to "unite all things to Him." And at the risk of being redundant, that is EVERYTHING on heaven and on earth. His plan is to get back to before the fall, when we were in perfect communion with Him. I personally think that the concept of an exclusive predestination theology arises when man begin focusing on the "you's" and "us's" in the passage and in Romans instead of the "Jesus's," the "His's," the "You's," and the "He's." That's the danger of a man-centered faith. Instead, let us walk in a Christ-centered life of adoring the Father: a life we were predestined for.
