Rabbi Schneider - Who Are You Talking To?
Shalom Uvrachah, beloved ones. Grace and peace to you and blessings to you today. I want to just pick up where I left off last week in the book of Ephesians 1:3. And I was stressing that Paul says here, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus". And I want to again remind us today about how important it is to focus on the Father. Too many of us we only focus on Jesus. But Jesus has brought us into a relationship with the Father. The Bible says that we were chosen in the Father before the foundation of the world in Christ Jesus.
So it says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who chose us in Him before the foundation of the world". In other words, the Father chose us in Jesus. In John 10, Jesus said, "I know my sheep, for my Father has given them to me". Some of us need to develop our sense of being the children of the Father, because our whole Christian experience has been focused on Jesus but we haven't continued on to recognize that Jesus has come to bring us into a relationship with the Father.
You see, we've been adopted by the Father through Jesus. This is what Paul teaches in the book of Ephesians. That because God chose us in Jesus, we are now adopted by the Father as sons, and that Jesus is our older brother. Now, as I shared last time, I believe Jesus is God in the flesh. But Jesus Himself said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man come up to the Father but through Me".
So I want to encourage you today, you might have to readjust your theology. And a place to start this is in your prayer life. If you're always praying to Jesus, then something's wrong with your heart's understanding of how you relate to God. Because Jesus Himself said, "When you pray, pray in this way, 'Our Father who art in heaven...'" So I want you to hear me, beloved ones. We need to focus on the fact that all things are stemming from the Father. The Father so loved us that He sent His Son into the world. And so let's get our heart posture correct. We've been called into a relationship with the Father through His Son.