LEARNING DAILY

 

Ephesians 1:3-5, How we praise God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we belong to Christ. Long ago, even before He made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in His eyes. His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into His own family by bringing us to Himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave Him great pleasure.  (New Living Translation)

 

As I have mentioned before, I have been reading and studying Paul’s writings in the New Testament; There is so much you and I can learn by taking our time while reading these letters and the applying what we learn tour own lives; what we can gleam from Paul’s writing is so important to walking on the narrow way. In the Introduction to Ephesians in the DJSB he writes, “Some regard the epistle to the Ephesians as the most profound and influential letter ever penned, second only to Romans in its theological and practical scope.” Because of that I want to take some time in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.

 

Notice that Paul began his teaching with mentioning the blessings we have through giving our lives to Jesus Christ. Every Christian has every spiritual blessing they need to live for Him, to walk the narrow way to His kingdom and eternal life. Christians are blessed with everything needed for eternal life, and for serving Him on earth and in eternity. These spiritual blessings we have in Christ include every need and every aspect of our lives. Paul includes an important phrase we do no want to miss “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms”. Paul wants every reader of this letter to understand that this promise is not one of earthly blessings that will pass way; it is a promise of spiritual blessings that will endure forever! The notes in the JSESB tells us that “these are divine blessings, grounded in Christ and are ours by reason of our being in Him, which was brought about by the Cross”.  Let me emphasize that they will endure forever! I believe that should encourage and strengthen each of us as we walk on the narrow way each day.

 

Let me react to one more thought in the verses above. The NLT above states that God loves us. The other Bibles I read and use for study do not mention this specifically. It is understood that God does love us because He chose us (more on that tomorrow). Man was created to live in fellowship with God. We are told throughout the Bible that God is love and love does not want to be alone; by this definition love requires relationship. God created Eve because God saw it was not good for man to be alone. God walked with them in the cool of the evening.  God desires to have fellowship with every Believer today – that is what it means to be “in Christ Jesus” (v.1). Every person who accepts Him as their Savior and Lord now lives and acts differently because of Him; we have new life in Him because of the grace, righteousness, and eternal life He gives. The spiritual blessings He give to each of us are to help us walk the narrow way to eternal life with Him in His kingdom.

 

So, I end today with the way I began - all praise be to the Father for the wonderful spiritual blessing He gives us now and for eternity to walk with Him as He desires. What more is there to say but thank you, Father, for Your many wonderful blessings!

From now on DJSB will be used to note information or quotes from the David Jeremiah Study Bible and LSSB will refer to information and quotes from the Life in the Spirit Study Bible.  I have added Jimmy Swaggart’s Expositor’s Study Bible to be referred to from now on as JSESB.