{"id":10091,"date":"2022-03-18T05:37:24","date_gmt":"2022-03-18T10:37:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-ephesians-2\/"},"modified":"2022-02-24T10:54:46","modified_gmt":"2022-02-24T16:54:46","slug":"devotional-on-ephesians-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-ephesians-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Ephesians"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_16137\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16137\" style=\"width: 960px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/P7209622.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/P7209622-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"720\" class=\"size-large wp-image-16137\" srcset=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/P7209622-1024x768.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/P7209622-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/P7209622-768x576.jpg 768w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/P7209622-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/P7209622.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-16137\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">2014 &#8211; Along Oregon Hwy 101 &#8211; north of Florence &#8211; Heceta Head Lighthouse<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Wandering in the wilderness<\/p>\n<p>Ephesians 2: You\u2019re no longer wandering exiles.<\/p>\n<p>We know the story of how under the leadership of Moses the children of Israel refuse to enter the Promised Land and end up wandering in the wilderness for 40 long years.  In this passage, Paul describes the Gentiles as also wandering out in the wilderness, separated from God.  Now, thanks to Jesus, the way into the Promised Land, the \u201ckingdom of faith,\u201d has been provided.  Everyone is invited, both Jews and Gentiles, to make the crossing into that place of peace, at home with God.  The reason, of course, that the children of Israel even make that long detour in the first place is that they didn\u2019t trust God.  Having rejected him, they turned away to the misery of the desert.  For the Gentiles, the situation&#8217;s a bit different.  Because of Jesus they\u2019re experiencing their first opportunity to come to God and they\u2019re taking full advantage of it, coming in by the thousands and tens of thousands.  For those who respond, the wandering days are ended and the days of spiritual abundance have begun.  On a personal level I\u2019ve seen more than one respond to what Jesus has done.  They\u2019re rewarded with new, everlasting life for their decision.  Sad to say, I\u2019ve seen a few who have opted for the wilderness instead.  Decisions have been made, priorities have been set, and they\u2019ve followed the road out into the desert.  Happily, God is the God of Second Chances.  At some point, I hope and pray that they\u2019ll find themselves once again at the point of decision.  I sincerely pray that at that time their wandering days will end.<\/p>\n<p>Take Away: Jesus provides us all the way to God.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wandering in the wilderness Ephesians 2: You\u2019re no longer wandering exiles. We know the story of how under the leadership of Moses the children of Israel refuse to enter the Promised Land and end up wandering in the wilderness for 40 long years. In this passage, Paul describes the Gentiles as also wandering out in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1491,1428],"tags":[1334,245,772,920,941,958],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10091"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10091"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16139,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10091\/revisions\/16139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}