Ephesians 1:3 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.

Since everything from verse 4 through verse 14 is one sentence in the Greek, this is by far the easiest verse to pull out to write on! (Ancient Greek having no punctuation had its disadvantages.) That said, the rest of the passage could be said to be an amplification of this verse, so from that standpoint it is a good one to write on. Our entire time on this earth is an adventure in unpacking all that is included in “every spiritual blessing in Christ.” Our finite flesh simply isn’t capable of taking it all in, particularly at once, so that’s why we have to unpack it a little bit at a time as the Lord reveals it to us. It’s a matter of the infinite blessings of an infinite God! By definition I have no words to express it all, but the journey of discovery is indeed glorious. It is when our eyes are opened to this reality that all the junk of this world fades to insignificance. As the last line of Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus says, “The things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.” This is precisely what Paul was talking about when he wrote, “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” (2 Corinthians 4:17) Any time we are bogged down by life – and there are plenty of opportunities for that – we need to shift our attention to this reality and simply praise God, because what He has done for us in Christ exceeds all the rest of Creation!

This is all very close to home for me for a number of reasons. My maternal grandfather, W.O. Carver, wrote several books, but many people agree that his best was his commentary on Ephesians, The Glory of God in the Christian Calling. He included his own translation of the Greek text, and it is interesting to me that virtually every translation since has chosen to use his reading of parts of this first chapter, in contrast to translations before his. In addition, my father’s doctoral dissertation was on all the appearances of “in Christ” and similar phrases in the New Testament. (He wasn’t my grandfather’s son-in-law at the time.) Despite having been awarded the PhD degree on the basis of his dissertation, my father told me that he had no real grasp of what it meant to be “in Christ” until he had a powerful encounter with the Holy Spirit, after he was in Japan as a single missionary. For myself, I have used Ephesians so much that the first two pages of it in my bilingual Bible have literally fallen out of the binding! That said, I’m still on a journey of discovery of all the spiritual blessings we have in Christ, and I am blessed indeed. As the Bill Gaither song puts it, “The longer I serve Him, the sweeter He grows.” My task, as a pastor and simply as a believing disciple, is to introduce as many people as possible to these blessings, because the more I share them, the more I myself enjoy them!

Father, thank You for this reminder. Thank You for the experience last night of sharing some of what You have brought me through, and how I am assured that since You have done that, I have every reason to trust You. Help me indeed give You the glory for all that You have done and are doing and will do, so that people will realize what a great God You are and yield themselves to You, for their salvation and Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!