The present actual reality

“If you put truth on the table, it doesn’t matter how much error is there,” says Jordan. “If truth can get an opportunity to have a fair hearing, it will take care of itself. The problem is error knows this so it doesn’t want truth to get on the table, or if it does, it wants it to be on the table in a distorted manner.

“God takes His life and implants it in our humanity. Jesus Christ was God. He took upon Himself our humanity and was made flesh. He lived in order to demonstrate above all other things what it’s like. Here’s how God intended man to live.”

*****

Ephesians 1:18 reads, “The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.”

Jordan explains, “You notice the ‘his’ in there? We usually read that verse backwards. You know, it’s ‘the eyes of your understanding being enlightened that you may know what the hope is of, not your calling, but His calling.’ Ephesians is saying, ‘It ain’t about you; it’s about what HE’S doing! It isn’t what you’re accomplishing, nor what He’s accomplishing for you—it’s what HE’S accomplishing for Himself USING you to do it. That’s the Bigger Picture.

“. . . There’s a great sense that people have of being alienated, separated, being out here by myself in the world. Everybody has that sense. But what do you do about it? One of the reasons people join gangs, whether it’s street people or . . . I remember years ago reading an article about Al Capone and Joe Kennedy. Kennedy and Capone were contemporaries and had Kennedy not been a millionaire he would have been considered a bootlegger. Every bottle of Irish-Scotch whiskey that comes into America, his family still gets a piece of.

“During the Prohibition, Al was over here with the speakeasies and he’s got guys importing it and making it in the radiators and stuff. Well, he’s a gangster. They both had the same motivation; they just started at different social stratas. One had no money, no political contact but he had street muscle. The other guy’s got political muscle and financial muscle. So one’s this big respected guy and the other, it’s let’s hang him and get rid of him kind of a guy. But the motivation behind both of them was the same. Power, money.

“One of things that motivates people is a desire to belong. To be a part of something special. You’ve been chosen in Him before the foundation of the world. Do you understand you belong to something that God planned to do from before the foundation of the world? How did you become a part of that? In Him.”

*****

Ephesians 1:4 says, “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.”

Jordan explains, “You got to notice that verse doesn’t say He chose you to be in Him; it says He chose you IN Him. When you trusted Christ, and God put you in His Son, He put you into something that He’s been planning to do from before the foundation of the world. Now, if that can’t help you bust your buttons and feel special, well you got a problem. You aren’t thinking about it. What you need to do is come to appreciate what that is.

“The verse says ‘that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.’ Holy means your set apart; something special to Him. You belong to Him and you’re especially His. I Peter I (without blame) and John 17 (before Him in love) are used to describe God’s attitude toward His Son before the world began. That means God thinks about you and I today exactly the way He thought about His Son before the world began.

“Sometimes you think about yourself kind of different than that, don’t you? God doesn’t. Now who do you think is right? If you’re going to ‘be strong in the Lord,’ that’s where your strength is. Your strength is to come to appreciate the present actual reality of God’s attitude toward you and God’s estimation of you.”