In Eph 1:3, Paul stresses first of all that we need to be praising the Heavenly Father above all things. God wants to bestow, yea, even lavish his love and blessings on His children. He is not up there in Heaven blessing us sparingly. Jesus said that He came that we might have an abundant life in Him. We must desire all that He has for us. We must want to live the Christian life to the fullest, learning more about Jesus every day. We strive for this because we want to “grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus,” as well as encouraging our fellow believers in their walk and reaching the lost with the message of salvation.

He has blessed us “with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places IN CHRIST.” The same Greek words rendered here “heavenly places” are translated “heavenly things” in James 3:12. Since we are “citizens of Heaven,” (Phil. 3:20) we must look to the things above and not things on the earth. Our spiritual mindset must be honed in on Jesus at all times. We are but pilgrims and strangers here on earth. We sing “this world is not my home…,” and rightly so. But we are as John says in I John 2:15-17 “in the world but not of the world,” we have to have a heavenly perspective in life. That perspective comes from believing the words of Paul here in Eph. 1:3.

It was with this mindset that Paul penned these words in 2 Tim. 2:3-4:  “Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.  No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.”

One of the great hymns of the Church starts off this way: “Soldiers of Christ, arise and put your armor on…” The hymn writer (Charles Wesley) reminds us that it is in the strength of the eternal Son of God that we live our lives today.

The Christian “soldier” must, like the Roman soldier avail himself of all the equipment needed to be effective as a soldier. Because of our faith in, and obedience to the Gospel, we are now in the Lord’s Army! Jesus expects us to “let our light shine” and use the training we receive to not only help us be better soldiers for Him, but to help others in the same manner.

Charles Wesley wrote, “Stand then in his great might, with all his strength endured, and take, to arm you for the fight, the panoply of God.” If we will do this we will fulfill the words of Paul in 2 Tim 2:3-3. Because we have our eyes on Jesus at all times (Heb. 12:1-2), we will not as Paul says, “get entangled in civilian pursuits.” One of the songs we sing goes like this: “More about Jesus I would know, More of His grace to others show; More of His saving fulness see, More of His love who died for me.”

Christians must strive to be the best soldiers we can be. We can rest assured that our Commander, the Lord Jesus, is leading us by example and is out in the forefront of the battle. He has provided all that we need to fight the spiritual battle. We only need to be willing to “take up the whole armor of God.”

We have an obligation, yea, privilege, to not only study the Bible for our own spiritual growth, we study it to help others learn more about God’s Word. Paul told Timothy, in 2 Tim. 2:1-2  “You then, my child, be strengthened by he grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have learned from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”

One reason to study God’s Word is so that we can help future generations to remain faithful to the Word! We must teach the Bible in a way that will encourage our students to want to share it with their students, thus keeping on making disciples and teaching them what the Lord has taught personally and through His apostles. By doing this we will ensure that we, along with the ones we teach have a firm foundation in God’s Word. We will instill a desire in our students to regard the Bible as God’s Word and to base their faith upon that standard. We must know what we believe and why. If we put the proper emphasis on the Bible we will not be led astray by false teachers.

Let’s faithfully teach the Bible! Someone taught the Word of God to whoever taught us, so let’s praise God for that and tell someone about Jesus ad His Word!