February 18, 2026
For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. I pray that according to the wealth of his glory he will grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner person, that Christ will dwell in your hearts through faith, so that, because you have been rooted and grounded in love, you will be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and thus to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you will be filled up to all the fullness of God.
Now to him who by the power that is working within us is able to do far beyond all that we ask or think, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:14-21 NET)
Psalm 91, a Song of Trust sung by those who have endured suffering and found God faithful, offers poetic imagery and emotional weight to help us better grasp what covenant loyalty looks like in the communal life of faith. It begins with the voice of a herald who, in brief, offers a headline statement that the rest of the Psalm will help us picture: “Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty” (v. 1, NIV). This is the summary of the relationship that God wants with his people: we dwell in him, and he gives us rest. As the Psalm continues, we see what that rest looks like: deliverance (vv. 3-4), protection (vv. 5-6), and satisfaction (v. 15b-16).
This is true for God’s people because it was first true for God’s King. In v. 2, a second voice speaks: “I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.’” Who is this voice? The language of refuge and fortress points us back to Psalm 2, which declares that those who take refuge in “the Son” are blessed (v. 12). This is the Son of God, the Messiah, who rules over all the nations. The Gospel of Matthew confirms that this is about the Son of God when the devil tempts Jesus with Psalm 91: “If you are the Son of God… throw yourself down. For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone’” (Matt. 4:6, NIV).
I have been studying the atonement. The original English word “atonement” literally means “at-onement.” In the New Testament, the atonement is expressed through a variety of images: sacrifice, wrath-removal, relational restoration, liberation/ransom, removal of guilt and shame, purification, victory over evil powers, etc. Scripture describes the work of Christ through a multi-faceted, multi-colored prism that we call atonement. It is everything Christ Jesus, our Messiah, did to make us “at one” again with God and to give us life in him. Psalm 91 anticipated this great, beautiful work in poetic forms that appeal to our hearts, imaginations, and desires.
Fast-forward to Ephesians 3, and we hear echoes of Psalm 91 reverberating through the apostle Paul’s encouragement to the church in Ephesus (and to us, by extension). But this text offers another breathtaking angle on this most beautiful of Christian doctrines: it is essentially Trinitarian! God the Father, Son, and Spirit are all intimately and deeply involved in the atonement. The Father has honored us with his family name, a moniker that means we belong (we are not strangers or orphans) and that we carry his glory in all aspects of our lives. This was made possible through the work of the Son, Christ Jesus, who “dwells in our hearts through faith” (v. 17). And the Spirit empowers and enlivens that mutual dwelling (him in us and us in him) so that we are rooted in his love. Through Christ, we dwell in God because we love him, and he dwells in us by his Spirit, giving us deliverance, protection, and a satisfying life!
Atonement, then, is an intimately relational concept. Any doctrine or idea of atonement that fails to reckon with its covenantal and joy-filled relationality is incomplete and, at worst, deficient. Theologian Scot McKnight explains, “But if we begin with sin as the willing diminishment of relational love with God, self, others, and the world, and if we define atonement as the work of God to restore cracked Eikons [image-bearing humans] in those four directions, then justice is also redefined: it entails a life of relational love for God, self, others, and the world. Love of God, self, others, and the work is what is right” (A Community Called Atonement, Nashville: Abingdon, 2007, p. 126).
So what does this have to do with leadership? Everything, I believe! If we are a people who take refuge in Jesus, who is restoring us in himself to God’s glory and bearing his family name in our lives, then our leadership must reflect that. For those who belong to Jesus, leadership is not primarily about task accomplishment. It is about restoring oneness with God, self, others, and the world. Do our words, actions, decisions, and presence as leaders manifest the kind of kingdom justice that reconciles, restores, and creates spaces where people can be deeply grounded in the love of God?
