Welcome to the 2019-20 school year! I don’t know if you experience the thrill of anticipation with every new year, but at the beginning of each school year, God births a new expectation of His work. This summer, I studied the book of Ephesians, and as I prayed for all stakeholders in our UMSI schools, He impressed on me the need to be reminded of our possessions in Christ Jesus. If you have spent any time camped in the book of Ephesians, you should understand your God-given inheritance. According to Ephesians 1, we are:
· Blessed – God has bestowed his gift and favor on us
· Chosen – selected, picked out
· Redeemed – ransomed, brought out of captivity into liberty, rescued, purchased
· Sealed – officially marked, identified by Christ, under authority
· Forgiven – pardoned, debt cancelled, and wiped clean
Why are these blessings so important for school administrators and staff to embrace? The apostle Paul felt the need to remind the church at Ephesus of their blessings and went so far as to pray for all Ephesian believers to receive a revelation of the POWER God had entrusted to them through the Holy Spirit, exhorting them to live out these truths. If today’s believers expect to live in the power of which Paul spoke, we must grasp the reality of our identity in the Lord Jesus Christ. Human strength alone cannot accomplish the task laid before us. However, through the power Jesus Christ provided in advance, we can be effective vessels for the kingdom of God. This year, if we aspire to overflow with God’s truth and serve as living examples to all stakeholders, we must dare to believe all God says about us and to be filled with Him. Join me in praying the truth of Ephesians for yourself individually and then corporately over the UMSI school association. When we assume this posture, I believe we will see the miraculous work of the Lord Jesus Christ this new school year.
Educating for Eternity,
Erin Baggs, UMSI Prayer Coordinator
Email your prayer requests to Erin at ebaggs@kacs.net.