Forever Home in the Eternal Family of God

Daily Encouragement for the Family of God by Kenton Cheek

14 July 2025

Reading From Acts 19:1-20

“While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples and asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”

They answered, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”

So Paul asked, “Then what baptism did you receive?”

“John’s baptism,” they replied.

Paul said, “John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.” On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied.”

—Acts 19:1-6

When we reach out to Him in faith, Jesus meets us where we’re at in life and begins to move us from that point forward. This is what happened to these disciples in Ephesus. As we travel along with the apostles in the book of Acts, we see similar patterns with how people come to Christ and begin to grow into their salvation.

After the atonement in the last chapters of John, Jesus breathed upon His followers and said, “receive the Holy Spirit.” I believe at that moment they were born again, received an inner, spiritual baptism in the blood of Jesus and became temples of the Spirit. At the moment an individual is rescued from the dominion of darkness, they are adopted into the eternal family of God. Water baptism is an outward sign of this inward work of God.

People don’t always have an emotional experience when they believe and repent. Perhaps this was the case with these Ephesian believers. They had already believed and repented. When someone chooses to trust Jesus and forsake sin, they are born again and receive the Spirit there they are cognizant of that or not. What Paul is referring to here is the endowment of power and passion from on high that comes with the overflow, the baptism with the Holy Spirit.

And so, if you have trusted in Jesus and turned away from your former life of sin, take heart. My prayer is that you stand upon the promise of forgiveness and justification by grace through faith. I pray also that God will enable you to feel His love in a profound and genuine way. Wait upon the Lord and pray continually for Him to clothe you with power and passion from on high to enable you to obey the Great Commandment and fulfill the Great Commission.

“Father Omnipotent, maker and ruler of Heaven and Earth, I humbly ask You to pour out Your Spirit upon Your sons and daughters. Help them to feel the warmth of Your radiant love. Fill them to overflowing with Your victorious power and might. Bless Your people, O King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Make us more aware of Your Presence. In the Name of Jesus Christ I pray these things.”

Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all.—I Chronicles 29:11

¹⁴ For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, ¹⁵ from whom every family^[c] in heaven and on earth is named, ¹⁶ that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, ¹⁸ may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, ¹⁹ and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

²⁰ Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, ²¹ to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

—Ephesians 3:14-21