Has Blessed Us
AS I sit here this morning reading this next section of our consideration, I can recall many years ago sitting in a small church on a bright Sunday morning listening to a sermon being expounded around Eph. 1:3:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
I CAN remember the ministers’ making the emphatic point that that phrase “has blessed” in spelled GOT IT, saying that every child of God in Christ already possesses every possible blessing imaginable in Christ, and yet we seem to walk around and live our lives as shameful paupers, joyless, as though we were in dire straights. That “GOT IT” message has always stuck with me, as that message once again came to mind this morning seeing this powerful verse at the center of today’s reading.
WE hear much talk these days about “worldview,” our frame of reference, how we see things that influence our actions; how we think the world works. It is like looking through colored glasses that effect or shade what we see. Or better yet, maybe a bad pair of glasses that throw everything out of focus and blur our vision. Properly prescribed corrective lenses can help poor vision and pull things into focus, making things more clear and less cloudy. How we see things, our frame of reference, our worldview effects how we react and respond to circumstances. Seeing things through a biblical lens like Eph. 1:3 can make quite a different not only on our outlook, but in our faith response to the circumstances that surround and confront us every day. My on-going prayer is that these writings are providing you a view to the joy of the Lord, a perspective to an abiding strength and moment-by-moment confidence in the Lord (Neh. 8:10; Isa. 30:15; Isa. 26:3).
With highest regards in Christ,
Joe
Matt. 6:33 – Providence & Perseverance
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Chapter 7—Appropriation – Part 2
Once we see that which is ours in Christ Jesus, practical need will cause us to appropriate, to receive, the answer to that need. “There was a ‘supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ’ for Paul, and that made it possible for Christ to be magnified in him. It was a supply which was always available, but only appreciated and appropriated as and when the Apostle came to know his need. Life is meant to bring a succession of discoveries of our need of Christ, and with every such discovery the way is opened for a new inflow of the supply. This is the explanation of so much that we cannot otherwise understand—this plunging of us into new tests where only a fresh supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ will meet our need. And as our need is met, as we prove the sufficiency of Christ to meet our inward need, so there can be a new showing forth of His glory through us.” (H. F.).
These two realities of seeing and needing bring us from childish meandering into a responsible, specific walk of faith. They take us from the “help me” attitude to that of giving thanks; from begging to appropriation. Notice what L. L. Letgers, co-founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators, has to say about this, referring to Ephesians 1:3: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ”: “If you run over in your mind and find one single blessing with which God might bless us today, with which He has not already blessed us, then what He told Paul was not true at all, because he said, ‘God has.’ It is all done. ‘It is finished.’ God hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies! The great pity of it all is that we are saying, ‘O God bless us, bless us in this, bless us in that!’ and it is all done. He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies.” As C. A. Coates said, “It is appropriation that tests us. How often we stop at admiration.”
From time to time the Holy Spirit will bring to our attention a certain aspect of the Word in a striking manner, and we will rejoice to see and believe that it is ours in Christ. ….to be continued
