For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints,  I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers,  that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him,  having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,  and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.  And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church,  which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. Ephesians 1:15-23

What the does it mean to know God? This is not an easy question to answer, any more than it is easy to answer the same question about a person. Whole books have been written about it. In one of these books, Knowing God, British scholar J.I.Packer suggests the following three elements: “First, knowing God is a matter of personal dealing….It is a matter of dealing with him as he opens up to you, and being dealt with by him as he takes knowledge of you….Second, knowing Godis a matter of personal involvement, in mind, will and feeling….The believer rejoices when his God is honored and vindicated, and feels the acutest distress when he sees God flouted…“Equally, the Christian feels shame and grief when convicted of having failed his Lord….Third, knowing God is a matter of grace. It is a relationship in which the initiative throughout is with God—as it must be, since God is so completely above us and we have so completely forfeited all claim on his favour by our sins.” That being the case, Packer concludes, “What matters supremely …is not…the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it—-the fact that he knows me.” This, of course, is the perspective of Paul in this opening chapter of Ephesians. He prays that we might know God precisely because it is God who has first set his love upon us and elected to know us savingly.

James Montgomery Boice

That God should set such a high value on a community of sinners, rescued from perdition and still bearing too many traces of their former state, might well seem incredible were it not made clear that he sees them in Christ, as from the beginning he chose them in Christ….God’s estimate of the people of Christ, united to him by faith and partakers of his resurrection life, is inevitably consistent with his estimation of Christ. Paul prays here that his readers may appreciate the value which God places on them, his plan to accomplish his eternal purpose through them as the first fruits of the reconciled universe of the future, in order that their lives may be in keeping with this high calling and that they may accept in grateful humility the grace and glory thus lavished on them.

F. F. Bruce

Jesus is “the head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way” (Eph. 1:22c-23). That for which the universe is being filled is itself the instrument of his filling. Jesus is changing the world for the good of the church by means of the church. Jesus said,”Where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them” (Matt. 18:20). This is more than a wedding song sentiment; it is a battle charge. It is the declaration of the divine groom that he will be present to protect and promote his bride. He who is head over all things and gives the universe its full purpose also fills the church that gathers in his name. As such the church, the body of Christ, is the present instrument of his filling the universe with his purpose. The eternal, universe–conforming power of God is present in the world through the church, and this power is working in the world for the church.

This filling of the world with Christ’s purpose for and through the church is the corporate hope we alone possess. No other agency on earth has this promise. God gives no other institution the promise or the power that it will be salt and light in the world. The world will ultimately and eternally yield to the influence of the church, because it is the body of him who is head over all and, thus, it contains and exerts his power in behalf of his own glory. Our mission does not end at the threshold of the church door, nor is it limited to matters the world calls “religious.” All of culture is our dominion, all enterprises are of our interest, and all that is beautiful is ours to enjoy and cultivate. All that is here he is head over. Therefore we have a right to be concerned for it and to bring it under the lordship of him for whom it was created and for whose glory it is designed.  

Bryan Chapell

In his book, Passion, Karl Olsson tells a story of incredible patience among the early French Protestants called Huguenots.

In the late Seventeenth Century in… southern France, a girl named Marie Durant was brought before the authorities, charged with the Huguenot heresy. She was fourteen years old, bright, attractive, marriageable. She was asked to abjure the Huguenot faith. She was not asked to commit an immoral act, to become a criminal, or even to change the day-to-day quality of her behavior. She was only asked to say, “J’abjure.” No more, no less. She did not comply. Together with thirty other Huguenot women she was put into a tower by the sea…. For thirty-eight years she continued…. And instead of the hated word J’abjure she, together with her fellow martyrs, scratched on the wall of the prison tower the single word Resistez, resist! Article by John Piper