Wednesday, August 31, 2011

EMMDEV 2011-08-31 [Ephesians] Seven Blessings - Intro

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. Ephesians1:3

As I mentioned last week, Ephesians 1:3-14 is one long sentence in the original Greek. In this long sentence Paul describes the past, the present and the future hope that we as Christians have in Jesus Christ. As we work our way through these seven blessings, we will see that they are Trinitarian: the blessings of the Father, Son and Spirit.

Paul describes these as our "Spiritual Blessings" in the "Heavenly Realms." I believe Paul's implications are that these blessings are significant and eternal. They are not simply the blessings of physical comfort and they are not only for this life.

Does this mean that they are "pie-in-sky-one-day-when-we-die?"
I don't think so!
I think these blessings are vital for us to hold on to for our day to day inspiration as we "fight the good fight."

Sometimes we get caught up in the gruntwork of life. The daily hustle and bustle wears down our excitement and joy. Paul wastes no time in this letter - he plunges straight into "counting our blessings!" He wants to wow his reader's hearts with an awesome sense of God's goodness and the "big-ness" of His purpose for our lives.

He invites us to have a sense of blessedness in our lives again!
Will you "count your blessings" with me over the next few days?

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Theo Groeneveld theo@emmanuel.org.za
You can see past EmmDevs at http://emmdev.blogspot.com/