Jesus, Our Exalted Lord

Living in a time when human exaltation is putting down any reference to God, we realize we must stand firm in our faith and grow in our knowledge of God.  When I pray for the Church (for all of you!), I echo the prayer of Paul for the church at Ephesus.  Ephesians 1:15-23  (ESVUK) ¹⁵ For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love towards all the saints, ¹⁶ I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, ¹⁷ that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, ¹⁸  having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, ¹⁹ and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power towards us who believe, according to the working of his great might ²⁰ that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, ²¹  far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. ²² And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, ²³  which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.  
There is so much in that passage, but two things I want to emphasize now.  One is that we need to grow in knowledge of God and all He has provided for us to fulfill His covenant expectation for mankind.  We tend to forget the Being of God.  The influence of  "religion" limits the word god, by having idols that are made by man and are therefore "different" but the "same", for they are all objects of worship.  This gives rise to the acceptance today of all "religions", for we all (supposedly) worship the same god.  There is only one God, eternal and beyond our understanding, so we try to fit Him into our concepts of Him.  But He is Spirit and fills all eternity.  The Creator became the prototype of the purpose of God, man in God's image, when He came to our realm to be the Way.  His Righteousness was expressed in our realm and God's love was revealed to our realm in Him. 

And second, we walk in the Way that is provided.  We follow in His footsteps--not just as He was revealed in His ministry in our realm, but in His unfolding work as He administers the Father's will on earth through His Body.  We do not live, work, worship and teach today as former generations did.  We move, led and guided by the Holy Spirit, to do and be what the Head directs.  We, the Body of Christ, are the fullness of Him Who fills all things!  We do not worship by rote, we do not "do" religious works because we know how to do them, nor do we understand the Word of God by human understanding.  The Holy Spirit gives us understanding even of words that people of former times could not understand even though they profited from their faith in them.  We, the Body of Christ, are a glorious creation of God through the faithful and completed work of Jesus Christ.  We are coming closer to the day of His return to this realm to be seen by all the world as the King of kings.