October 8, 2017 · Ephesians 1:9–11 (NLT)

A No-Walls God

God has now revealed to us his mysterious will regarding Christ — which is to fulfill his own good plan. And this is the plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ — everything in heaven and on earth.

“The mystery of God is one of the things I love most about God, and one of the things that frustrates me the most about God. It frustrates me because sometimes I'm like, God, why is this happening? Why have you allowed this? But then again, he's always doing the unexpected. You can't put him in a box. You never know when he's going to show up or how he's going to show up. And part of the mystery is that a lot of times it doesn't make sense to us. But we're hearing here: don't worry, don't fear, he has a plan. There's a plan. I don't know the plan. I don't understand the plan. But I have to learn to trust the plan. And that's a hard thing to do. But we know what the plan is about. We got the vision. … (Ephesians 1:10) God has a plan to bring unity to this universe under Jesus. The unity of the church, this bringing of unity — this is where the tearing down of the walls comes in. This is a no-walls God. He wants oneness. He wants to bring all of humanity, all of heaven, together under the love of Jesus, the grace of Jesus, the peace of Jesus, the hope of Jesus. I know, as we go through the book of Ephesians, we'll see this keep popping up.”