Ephesians 1:3-6 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, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. This episode is about the blessing God has for us and how he knew all the times that we would turn our backs on Him, and yet, He chose to create us anyway. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
I Am Blessed (Identity Series)
Ephesians 1:3-6 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, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.
What beautiful scripture verses! These definitely seem like good ones to write down and re-read any time we are having a bad day. God has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly place. I can’t even imagine how much blessing that is. God must really love us if he is blessing us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly place.
Then, it goes on to say that He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world and that we should be holy and blameless before him. He chose us before the foundation of the world. That seems so crazy to me. It is crazy to me that God knew everything that was going to happen, and yet he still chose to create us. He made us to be holy and blameless in His sight and yet we have failed at this over and over again.
Oftentimes, we say hindsight is 20/20. Meaning we can only see things perfectly when we are through them and looking back at them with he knowledge we gained through the experience. For instance, when we are going through a difficult time, we don’t really understand it, and we make our decisions based on the info that we have at the time. However, when we are through that difficult circumstance, and we know how things ended, then we realize we perhaps should have made a different decision.
It is not the same for God. He knows everything. Nothing is a surprise to Him. I find it remarkable that even though He knew how often we would turn our backs on Him or do the exact opposite of what He wanted us to do, He still went ahead and created us. He not only decided to create us knowing all the times we would mess up, but He also kept forgiving us. Time and time again, we do the things we know we are not supposed to do; God keeps forgiving us.
I wonder if we would do the same? Many people say that they learned a lot after going through something really difficult. However, I wonder, even knowing all that we learned or gained from the difficult experience, how many of us would choose to go through it all over again. Think about a really difficult time in your life. Think about how hard or how painful it was. Then, think about what you learned from it or gained from it.
Everything that we go through teaches us something if we are open to seeing it. We can find a lesson in every experience. For instance, going through a really hard time in a relationship can teach you resilience, and/or how to be persistent and to work hard at something. It can also teach you to be stronger. If the relationship ends, it can be difficult, and you can learn something from that, too. It can teach you what to look for and what to avoid in your next relationship. Do you see how there is always something you can learn?
However, even knowing all the benefits you have gained from this experience, I wonder how many of us would choose to do it again. What about a friendship that ended badly? Imagine you had a really good friend for several years, and then something happened, and that friendship ended. You felt really hurt when it was over. Do you wish that you had never met that person? If you could go back in time to when you met that person, would you go meet them? Would you spend all those years building up good memories if it meant that you had to go through the pain of losing that friendship again?
I think that many of us would choose not to go through difficult times if we could. We would choose to stay in our comfort zone and not venture out of it. Not try new things because we could get hurt or we could fail. We would and often times we do tend to play it safe. The thing is, we do not grow when we are in our comfort zone. We do not grow without challenges. Do those challenges often bring difficult times? Yes. Do we grow immensely in those difficult times? Yes. Well, if we allow ourselves to grow, then we do. This is what God wants for us. He wants us to grow and become stronger. He wants us to lean into Him when things get hard and to be open to growth during these times.
God chose to go through all the pain just for us. He knew all the things we would do, He knew all the ways that we would hurt Him, and yet He still chose us. He still chooses us every single day. Is that not incredible to you? I honestly find it difficult to believe some days with the way the world seems to be going. It seems as though the world as a whole is trying to remove God from more and more things. And yet, He keeps hanging in there. He keeps performing miracles and blessing His children.
The next part of the verses listed above says, “In love, He predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ.” He predestined, that just verifies that He knew all that was going to happen and yet had a backup plan. He knew we would need saving and yet still predestined our adoption through His son, Jesus Christ. He loved us so much that He sent his son to be crucified for our sins.
One thing that we may not often think about is the fact that God not only knew all we were going to do, but He knows how our story ends. He knows how all of this ends. By sending His son to be crucified on the cross for our sins, He has already redeemed us and granted us salvation if we choose to accept it. It says in 1 Corinthians 15:57, “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” God has already won this fight for us. We don’t have to worry about how things will turn out. Romans 8:28 tells us, “ and we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to His purpose.”
God has predetermined that we would be his adopted children. Because of this we know that He will work all things for our good. He knows the mistakes we will make, and he loves us anyway. Yes, you heard that correctly, and yes, I am talking to you. God loves you and accepts you for who you are, flaws in all. God knew you were going to do that thing that you keep thinking about, and he made you in His likeness and image anyway. Remember the beginning of this episode: God has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. God has blessed you with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. What an amazing Father we have!
Dear heavenly father, I ask that you bless everyone listening to this episode today. Lord, we thank you for blessing us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. I am sure we can't even imagine how many blessings that is. Lord, we love you so very much. It is crazy for us to think about how you knew all the ways we were going to mess up, and yet you decided to create us anyway. Lord, we can never thank you enough for sending down your son to die on the cross for our sins. Lord, we thank you for taking us in as your sons and daughters. We thank you for using all things for our good and for helping us be victorious in the end. Lord, we thank you for being patient with us while we make these mistakes and for always forgiving us when we ask. Lord, you are amazing. We ask all of these things in accordance with your will and in Jesus's holy name, amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. Today, we kick off our new February Series for Mentoring. This month’s series will be “The Power of God Within Us.” I hope you will join us to learn all about the power of God that you have living inside of you all the time. You are more powerful than you know, and once you learn about that power, you can begin to use that power to help you wherever you need help. I pray you will join us this evening. There is a link below with all the details. If you email me, I can also send you the link to see what it is like before you join. I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you just as you are, and so do I! Have a blessed day!
Today’s Word from the Lord was received in August 2024 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today’s Word from the Lord is, “I will shower you with blessings, with my love, my comfort, my strength, my peace. Then you will be able to go out in the world and share it with others."