BLESSED

Ephesians 1:3-7 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him (Jesus) before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. In Him (Jesus) we have redemption through His (Jesus’) blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.”

The joy of our salvation comes from knowing what we have been saved from and what we are saved to. One of the major problems that we have in society today is the lack of recognition that we have sinned, and continue to sin daily, against a ‘just’, ‘holy’ and ‘sovereign’ Creator God. How many of us can say that we have loved our Father God in Heaven with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, or our neighbor as ourselves (Mark 12:30-31)? How many can truly state that they obey God’s commandments or Jesus’ teachings (John 14:23-24)? Can any of us say that the Beatitudes or the godly attributes from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew chapters 5-7) describe the thoughts, words, and deeds of our life? We need to come to the realization that by our sinful disobedience to God’s perfect Word, Will and Way, we do not deserve a blessing (that invocation of happiness & love) by God, but His wrath and punishment. But thankfully, God grades on the cross, not the curve. The first step to appreciating what God did for us in His Plan of Redemption, Salvation, and Eternal Life in Heaven is to understand that it is totally undeserved, unearned, and can not be purchased outside of the atoning sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ on that cross, in our place. The best mathematical equation I have ever seen is: 1 cross + 3 nails = 4 given.

1 John 2:16 tells us, “For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the prideful boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the godless world.” Ignorance of our unholy and unrighteous state before our holy and righteous Creator God produces darkness and blindness in a life seeking happiness, but never finding it on the highway to Hell; that wide road to destruction (Matthew 7:13), oblivious to the light of Truth. This is what we are saved from! This is what we have to rejoice about! Sovereign is your loving Savior! From this prospective of salvation by grace through faith, the blessings of God (blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him (Jesus) before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved), allows us to more fully comprehend what we have been saved to. Tell someone that you love today about what God has done for you, and them.

Ephesians 2:1-9 “You He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast."

Blessed in Christ, Brian