Eph 1:3-14 is a marvellous list of all the spiritual blessings God has already freely given to His people. So often, we struggle to believe God wants to bless us, partly because we have wrong ideas about blessing (assuming these must be only material blessings or finding it hard to believe in blessing if we are in the middle of battles and suffering.) Nonetheless, these verses talk of 10 spiritual blessings which God has bestowed on us – blessings we need to take hold of and unwrap. We are children of the King and heirs of God, yet we can so often live in spiritual poverty, like Oliver in ‘Oliver Twist’ or Mephibosheth in the Old Testament (see 2 Sam 9).
God’s blessings include:
- Being chosen in God before the creation of the world to be holy & blameless in His sight – given a purpose and destiny in life. (Eph 1:4, 11)
- Loved by God (‘focus of His love’, ‘pleasure & will’, Eph 1:5)
- Predestined us for adoption to sonship (Eph 1:5, 11), again reminding us that we are now part of God’s family through His choice.
- Given us glorious grace in Christ, the One he loves/ lavished grace upon us (Eph 1:6-8). Our whole relationship with God is based on His free grace (see Eph 2:6-9).
- Redemption through the blood of Christ (Eph 1:7, 14) – being bought back when we were dead in transgressions and sins.
- The forgiveness of sins (Eph 1:7) – allowing us to live lives free from condemnation, able to approach God’s grace with confidence.
- Divine Mysteries revealed (Eph 1:11-12)
- Included in Christ (Eph 1:13) – and therefore able to access all the blessings Paul talks of which are available through Him.
- Marked with the seal of the Holy Spirit (Eph 1:14), giving us assurance about the future.
- Guaranteed inheritance (Eph 1:14), which will not perish or spoil like earthly wealth (see 1 Pet 1:3-5)
The consequences of these blessings, when properly applied to our everyday lives, is to give us confidence, hope, assurance and security. We can live our lives for God instead of for ourselves, because we know He is looking after us and working all things together for our good. We can have hope even in adversity because we are confident of His love, favour, grace and power. We can persevere and endure through our present sufferings because of the assurance He has given us. We can say with the psalmist, ‘blessed is the people whose God is the Lord.’ (Ps 145:15)
