BLESSINGS FROM GOD
Blessings From God – Ephesians 1:3-14
All praise and thankfulness to God the Father who loves us. He is the source of all spiritual blessings, all of them, in Christ and through Christ.
He has chosen us- To be holy and blameless, in Christ.
Election and predestination are words that have confused many Bible students over the years. Before He spoke the universe into existence God laid out the plan of salvation. God is outside of time, He sees everything that has been and what’s going to happen. He knew once we accepted the free gift of salvation He would consider us holy and without blame, that’s because of Jesus, He sees the blood of Jesus that paid for our sins. That’s how he can see us as holy or without blame. God laid out this plan before time started, and He also knows how it plays out.
God is not cherry-picking who will accept the free gift of salvation or who won’t. That thought goes against the rest of scripture and the very nature of God.
1 Timothy 2:4 “Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.”
2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
Romans 1:16 “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”
God Laid Out the Plan of Our Adoption
Roman adoption law was a way of appointing an heir. Legally transferring authority from the natural father to the adoptive father. Once we are saved we become children of God and then heirs with Christ. Again, the plan predestined, or determined before hand by God, was that He would consider those saved by His Grace though faith in Jesus as His adopted children.
He has accepted us – We are only acceptable to God because he made the way, through Jesus. We are saved through Grace by faith in Jesus. Because God loved us from the very beginning he made a way, that we don’t deserve, to be accepted by Him. Jesus paid the sin debt for the whole of mankind, we just repent, believe and accept.
“Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God...”
ACTS 2:23
Redemption Through Jesus
He has purchased us with His blood on the cross. The word redemption is a present tense word. Not the past. Not the future. Today, the present, our redemption is something He does for us at the present. He forgives us of our sins through the wonderful plan of salvation because of His grace.
Mystery of His Will
Not only has He saved us, He allows us to understand or gives us wisdom, of the great mystery of God’s plan of redemption. We can share what we know of God’s plan with others. God’s plan of salvation is a mystery to those who are not in Christ, those who are not saved. The world doesn’t understand what the big deal is. We can show the light of Jesus in our lives, and we can share the plan of salvation. We can share of the wonderful Grace of God to all those around us.
“In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:”
EPHESIANS 1:11
Blessing of an Inheritance in Heaven
Because of God’s perfect plan, through Jesus, we are heirs of God. We have an inheritance in heaven.
Because of Jesus, again, The earnest or down payment on our inheritance has been paid by Jesus and we are sealed by the Holy Spirit. That means God put his stamp or seal on us, we have the Holy Spirit living inside us.
Romans 8:16-18 “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”
We join with Paul and give God all the praise and glory for these wonderful blessings and the gift of salvation He has given us!
“Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.”
EPHESIANS 1:14