June 9 Readings: Ephesians 1:1-2:10

Today’s Readings

Context

Devotional

 I really need a blessing today; how about you? Maybe, if we are good, God will pour out more and  more blessings on us today than he did yesterday.

That's the way we think, isn't it? We long for blessings. We seek blessings from Jesus. We struggle to attain blessings from him. We wonder what we have to do to get more of them. But there is a problem with this view - it runs counter to what God's work says in Ephesians 1:3.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

Did you see that? It says that God HAS (past tense) blessed us with EVERY spiritual blessing we can expect. I've got every blessing I will ever need; every one I will ever receive - already.

The key words in this passage appear here and several times throughout this section (verses 3-14) - two word that change everything. "In Christ." In him we have every blessing God can give us. Why? Because Jesus doesn't give us blessings, he IS the blessing. When God gives us Christ, when we are "in him" we have everything we could want, everything we need. 

What are some of those things we have "in Christ?" This passage tells us a few of them. 

• He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. (God chose us for his own and determined to make us blameless!)
• In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will. (In Christ we are now part of God's heavenly family.) 
• In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace. (We are forgiven in Christ.) 
• Making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. (God has a plan to consummate history in Christ, and we are part of it!)
• In him we have obtained an inheritance. (In Christ we inherit the riches of God's grace.)
• In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. (The Spirit is ours in Christ.)

So, when I have Christ, I don't really need anything else. He is all the blessing I will ever need. In him, I have all the blessings of eternity. 

Father, thank you for your great blessing, Jesus Christ my Savior and Lord. All I need from you I have in him. 

It would be comforting to know someone who was immensely wealthy - and generous. I wouldn't have to worry about mortgages, student loans, credit cards, medical bills or anything else. If I had a problem, my wealthy and generous friend could take care of it. I wouldn't have to worry about what I didn't have; I could rely on what he did have.

I have a wealthy and generous companion, except, in Ephesians 2:7 it is not money or power that comprises his wealth, but grace. In Christ (there's that phrase again) he demonstrates to us the "immeasurable riches of his grace."

And its a good thing that God is rich in grace, because that is exactly what we need. Ephesians 2:1-3 described our natural condition as humans. It's not a pretty picture.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Sin rendered us spiritually dead - that is serious, wouldn't you say? Because of our inborn sin we tend to follow the ways of world, going along with what everyone else is doing. We are subject to that deceptive spirit that is rooted in the work of Satan himself and enslaves humanity. Like the first human pair, we choose what is wrong based on those lies and mess our lives up royally. Instead of living according to the righteousness of God, we follow the desires of our minds and bodies. The horrible result of that is found in verse 3 - we were "children of wrath" - awaiting the awful day when we would receive the just reward for our sinfulness. 

Not a pretty picture, is it? 

But verse 4 has the two most important words in the Bible. "But God." God interfered to stop the victory of sin. He intervened to change the course of history. He did not leave us as we were, but went to war against the sin that had separated us from him. By sending his Son to die on the cross for our sins, God poured out the riches of his grace if full and unstinting measure. He didn't just give us a little grace. He didn't just give us a lot of grace. He lavished the riches of his grace on us, pouring it out in full measure. 

We didn't get a garden hose of grace, we got the firehose. No, we got Niagara Falls!

Verses 8 and 9 sum it all up in a very familiar way. 

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 

There is no room for me to boast. All I contributed was my sin, my failure, my depravity. God did everything else. It is all by grace without any mixture of my own works. What an amazing salvation we have been given by the riches of God's grace. 

We are the workmanship of the master craftsman, who builds us by his grace so that we might be ready to do the good works he has prepared us to do. From start to finish, it is all by God's grace - his immeasurable riches of grace. 

Father, I thank you that my life, my hope, my future does not depend on my own abilities or my own goodness. I rejoice that I am bathed in your immeasurable grace. 

Think and Pray