A "glorious church........

Ephesians 5:27, "That he might present to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish."

Jesus wants to present to Himself a "glorious church!

Learning God's ways produces this result in the people of God as they are instructed on the lifestyle that is pleasing to the Heavenly Father and how to be empowered to live it.

God wants to present to the world, a people who are His and who will display a quality of life that He produces in them, which the world cannot duplicate.  He wants to present a people who will demonstrate to the rest of the world what life is really like for a people when God is their Everything!

These people are those who submit to learn His ways and who obediently walk in His paths.

We need to learn the ways of God because when we come into the church as new believers, we bear a striking similarity to the children of Israel when they came out of Egyptian bondage.

The Book of Exodus tells the story of Israel's deliverance from 400 years of bondage and slavery in Egypt.  God had set them free and had taken them unto Himself as His people, but they were a people with a major problem that God was going to have to deal with.  All the Israelites had been born in Egypt.

Egypt's lifestyle had born into (molded) their lives. They had learned Egypt's ways of life, their language and their patterns of thinking.

They thought like Egyptians, they ate like Egyptians and they acted like Egyptians. They had an Egypt mentality and a slave mind set. God had delivered them out of Egypt, now he was going to take Egypt out of them.

The people of Israel needed their thinking changed.  God was going to have to retrain and reeducate them from Egypt's ways to His ways.  Israel must learn that they are what God says they are now and not what Egypt said they were. It was important that they be introduced to the laws and principles of God that He expected them to live by as His people in Canaan.

When you and I were delivered from the Kingdom of darkness and brought into the family of God, we came with a problem similar to Israel's problem. Still clinging to us was a world mentality and a slave to sin mindset that was going to have to be dealt with.  Like Israel, we too needed our thinking changed and we needed to be instructed in the ways of God that He expects His church to walk in.

It is important that everyone knows the way the government they live under operates.   It is to our detriment if we neglect to educate ourselves in the area of laws and regulations.

Are we to think that God would be any less specific in giving to the citizens of His Kingdom the information that is crucial for them to know how His kingdom functions and how the laws that govern it operate?  I think not!

God has given to us in His Kingdom a handbook called The Bible with all the information about His ways that we need to know so we can live successful, productive and victorious Christian lives pleasing to Him.

We need to learn His ways because we come into His house like little children that need training and discipline in the ways of God.

Many of us have thought that God's goal was to fill His house with as many people as He can get into it. 

No, not true, He wants more than that.

God is out to get people who can take instruction and are willing to be disciplined. He is looking for a people who will come into His house and say, "Here I am, Father, instruct in Your ways."

God wants to deliver us out of our empty unfulfilled existence that we had in the world and bring us into His house to be instructed in His ways that will lead us into paths of satisfaction and fulfillment.

 Many of us may be pleased with who we are now in our spiritual growth, but none of us are what we could be if we continue to learn God's ways.


God brings us into His house so He can write on us and stamp us with the Holy Spirit's seal and send us to the world. It is God's intention that by the time He is finished teaching His people His ways, every believer will become an open expression of God and all will be telling the same story.   

I Corinthians 3:3, "We become your letters known and read by all men."

We are to be an expression from His heart.

 I can't help but wonder: “What are people reading when they read you and I?”