God Gold of the day
‘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, ‘
Ephesians 1:3
I started reading through Ephesians this morning and HOLY COW!!! (No pun intended) Talk about some SERIOUS GOLD!!! I feel like a farmer who was digging for their crops and struck oil!!! For real though, I got to reading and as you can tell, verse three is as far as I made it before I had to stop and take it all in.
First off, THANK YOU GOD!!! Thank you is an extremely light way to put it considering the magnitude of how He has blessed us! At first, I was like, “okay, cool, God has given us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, that’s pretty awesome!” The more I got to digging into it, God unveiled some pretty wild and big time truth that has kept me moving forward all day.
How has God blessed us, simply put, He’s given us Jesus.
Looking at the verse at first, at a quick glance it looks like the blessing of Jesus and every spiritual blessing are two different blessings but PUMP THE BRAKES! Looking at it a little deeper, it says God has blessed us “in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Note that first part that I placed in bold for you. “Every Spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” comes only through our relationship in Christ. Throughout the New Testament we see this term used a lot, “in Christ.” The power in these two words can easily be overlooked.
Do you realize as a follower of Jesus that you are in Christ, that Christ is in you, and that Christ and you are ONE, together, unified, can’t be separated. Let that blow your mind for a moment……Okay, your mind is blown, now lets blow it up even more.
You, as a believer and follower of Christ, through that relationship we have with Christ, it’s “IN CHRIST,” that we have access to and have been given every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. “EVERY spiritual blessing,” that’s not just some blessings when you are having a good day, did your devotion time or spent enough time praying. That means that since we are in Christ, which never stops or ends, and we can’t be separated from Christ no matter what we do or what gets in our way. Not just some that you deserve or a few today and a few more tomorrow, each moment as we live our lives in Christ, as ONE with Christ we have ultimate and total access to EVERY daggum spiritual blessing that comes with who Christ is, what He’s capable of and even more so, look at where they come from…..”in the heavenly places.” WHAT!?!?
If you’re like me, I read that this morning and honestly part of me wanted to question this truth, “so you’re telling me that through Christ I have access from every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places??” “Like the same heavenly places where our God, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe and all things resides? It’s crazy when you sit down and really think about it but it’s God’s truth given to us, just as He has given us Jesus, His Son, and through access to Jesus we have access to every spiritual blessing in he heavenly places.
Now this is where things got hairy for me and God really blew me away. How come if all this is true, I’m one with Christ and through Christ I have access to all of these spiritual blessings literally from heaven. If God has given me access to all of this, that holds so much power I can’t even put it into words how much power that is. How come I spend so many days depressed, feeling like I don’t have enough, anxious, worried and doubtful? How come I mess up so much and continue trying to find solutions in this world? If I have access to all that God has given me in Christ, all of these spiritual blessings, why am I the way I am and why is my situation the way it is?
This is what I realized this morning and I pray this is such a HUGE encouragement for you today. God has given us access to all of this, why is our lives the way it is and why do we live so weak and timid?
Because we simply haven’t taken hold of these blessings God has blessed us with. He has freely given us them through His Son Jesus, we’ve received them but we haven’t accepted them. We haven’t believed these things to be any more true than just encouraging words on a page. God has given us so much and the reason we have struggled despite all of these blessings where God has literally given us everything and then some of what we need is simply because we haven’t accepted His truth into our lives.
Think about it this way. A UPS man drops off a package at your house. Inside is a brand new Iphone. Awesome right?!? From reading the reviews online when we ordered it we read and were blown away from all the power and capabilities it has. “Wow, this phone is really going to change my life.”
The package is left on the front door step of your house, you even get home and bring it inside but once you sit it down, you forget about it. Days go by, months go by, and you’re still struggling with your half-working, broken old iphone while this brand new iphone sits there collecting dust inside the package. You have made the decision to have this Iphone in your life, you have been given it by the UPS man and you’ve even received it. But as you continue using the old iphone you already have and wonder, “gosh, why can’t I fix this, why can’t this be better.” While still, the brand new Iphone is sitting there, ready to go to work, ready to display it’s power in your life and change your life but you continue to leave it there, in the box.
How often do we do this with the gift God has given us? The gift of Jesus that has came into our lives, we”ve received Him along with all the spiritual blessings He brings, but we leave Jesus and His blessings sitting in a box. We wonder why our lives are the way they are but we have Jesus right there with us, with all the power, all that we could ever need to help us, but we just continue to refuse to open the box and truly accept this gift God has given us. That’s the sad truth I learned about how I treat this gift of Christ in my life so often. I have been given everything by God but I don’t truly accept, believe and actually use the gifts He’s given to me.
Just imagine what you and your life would look like if you just stopped being stubborn and stopped trying to use other things of this world like an old iphone that never works. What would happen if you accepting God’s Word as truth, believed that what you read here is the truth of what He’s blessed you with, and actually lived in light of these truths as ONE with Jesus, with access to every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. What would change for you?
I don’t know what that is for you, but I realized today for me, the answer is EVERYTHING!!!!
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