I thought Scafell Pike (the highest mountain in England ) was impressive until I saw Mont Blanc and realised it is more than 4 times higher.
The Old Testament reaches a mountainous peak in 1 Kings 4 and
5. Things are as good as they are going to get for ancient Israel Middle East .
There is a hint that all is not as good as it seems – Adoniram is in charge of
the forced labour (1 Kings 4:6) which suggests that Israel’s prosperity is
built to some extent on slavery – but this is a high point in the Old
Testament. Most would probably settle for that and generations to come would
look back to this golden era in the promised land. This is Israel ’s Scafell Pike .
But Ephesians raises the bar sky high and takes us to Mont Blanc . What God has done for us exceeds anything we
could imagine. Not only do we see his sheer grace in taking people who deserved
nothing and giving them everything (and you could not find a better definition
of grace than Eph 2:4-5) but it is hard to take in the scale of what he gives
us. Paul uses the language of what we can hope for in the future to describe
the present: he has made us alive in Christ (v5), raised us, seated us in the
heavenly realms (v6), and so it goes on.
The rest of life is about playing catch-up, learning to
become what Paul tells us we already are.
Are our expectations high enough? Do we settle for Scafell
Pike when we can have Mont Blanc ? What does
God actually want for you?
(member of the
congregation)