October 31 | Bible in a Year: Jeremiah 22-23; Titus 1

Believing in God

You also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Ephesians 1:13

Barry never thought he’d be reunited with his daughter. On top of being involved with gangs and drugs since his teens in Glasgow, he had experienced six years of homelessness. Then, after going to rehab, he got clean. But when the relationship broke down, grief and despair spurred him back to drugs. “I hit rock bottom,” he confessed. “I tried to kill myself twice in one week and knew I couldn’t go on like that.”

Then Barry contacted a friend from a local city mission who helped him to access a Christian rehabilitation facility. There he came to faith in Christ, and after a couple of years of therapy, hard work and God’s grace, he re-entered society. He now enjoys seeing his daughter and helping inmates at the local prison. To anyone who’s despairing, he says, “Ask for help; . . . there is a way out.”

The power of the gospel is to bring hope for the hopeless. As Paul wrote to the Ephesian church, God blesses His people with “every spiritual blessing in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3). He adopts those who believe in Him “to sonship through Jesus Christ . . . to the praise of his glorious grace” (vv. 5–6). And those who believe are included in Christ: “When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit” (v. 13).

No one is beyond God’s help or hope; like Barry, we only need to believe.

By Amy Boucher Pye

REFLECT & PRAY

How have you seen God’s saving love in your life? In which areas of your life could you trust God today?

Glorious God, thank You for adopting me as Your beloved child. You seal me with Your Holy Spirit; I know I’m Yours.

SCRIPTURE INSIGHT

Paul delivers Ephesians 1:3–14 in the form of a doxology—or praise—to God. Paul, a Jew, writes to gentile believers in Jesus, assuring them of their adoption (v. 5) into an unparalleled inheritance. When he says, “we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ” (v. 12), he’s speaking of the first believers, who were Jewish. Yet he’s quick to include “you,” that is, the gentiles, who also believed ( v. 13). And he gives us great hope: we’re “marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance” (vv. 13–14).

Tim Gustafson

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