Ephesians 1 - (12th Meditation) - "The Life of God in the Soul of Man"

Henry Scougal, a puritan pastor, was vexed by the question, "How can someone know for sure if he belongs to the Lord?" Needless to say, he wasn't content to point to a one-time experience that yeilded little-to-no sanctifying effects. Are you?

The title of Scougal's book, The Life of God in the Soul of Man, is the answer to the question that he realized and embraced after much biblical meditation. The book is simply the fruit of his meditation. Aren't you glad he wrote it! Perhaps you wouldn't be a believer today if he didn't. Think that's an overstatement? Consider your spiritual heritage. Someone had to tell you about Christ...someone had to tell them about Christ...etc...

How does Scougal's book fit into your conversion (assuming you are the Lord's)? Well, the greatest preacher ever to step foot on American soil was converted as a result of reading Scougal's book.

When he was 17 he entered Pembroke College at Oxford in November, 1732. He was gradually drawn from former sinful associates, and after a year, he met John and Charles Wesley and joined the Holy Club. Charles Wesley loaned him a book, The Life of God in the Soul of Man. This book--plus a severe sickness which resulted because of long and painful periods of spiritual struggle--finally resulted in his conversion. This was in 1735. He said many years later:

I know the place...Whenever I go to Oxford, I cannot help running to the spot where Jesus Christ first revealed him- self to me, and gave me the new birth.

If you are a Westerner, you would be hard-pressed to convince any honest historian that Whitefield's influence had no effect on those who have passed the gospel down to you.

Why share this historical aside in a meditation on Ephesians chapter one? Because it is the best way I know of describing the majesty of what God reveals in Ephesians 1:13-14.

Click the verse link above and READ IT SLOWLY. See it? More importantly, can you identify with it?

GOD lives inside of His people! The Holy Spirit is given as a pledge of our inheritance...to the praise of His glory! Believers have GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT living inside of them.

So, Scougal was right.

Q: How can someone know if he belongs to the Lord?
A: "The Life of God is in the soul of the man." - or, God lives in you.

Now would be a good time to be preoccupied with the God of your salvation - who lives within you!

The 13th meditation will be a meditation on 1:13, and will lean on the thesis of Scougal's book; "The worth and excellence of a soul is to be measured by the object of it's love."

Is this true?