⏱ 8 min read

• We are super excited to start with Ephesians today! 📖🔥🤗 Let’s “tattoo” God’s Word📖 in our hearts! 🤍
• There is always quite a lot to unpack from each chapter and we can’t exhaust it all in one devotional.
• As such, we are really looking forward to your lessons, insights, comments, etc., so that we and many others can benefit from them also. 

“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to God’s holy people in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
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. 
For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight.” ~ Ephesians 1:1-4

Paul introduces himself as an Apostle (a messenger) and he mentioned that it was God’s will for him. He then described the believers in Ephesus as “the holy ones and the faithful in Christ Jesus.” Isn’t that an excellent commendation? Such a label would be a great honour for any Christian.

• Dear friend, what about your lifestyle, character, values, focus, etc., would cause people to classify you as a faithful follower of Christ Jesus?
• Please let us hold fast to our faith, one day at a time. Let us faithfully obey God, even in the details of our life.
• One day, like the Ephesians, may you and I also be known as people who are faithful to the Lord!

In verse 2, he greeted them with grace and peace. Then he talks about many Blessings for the Believer in Christ (including you and I). I have put a few here for us to consider as a declaration:

1. I am blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ! (v3)
2. I am chosen, and chosen to be holy before God in love! (v4)
3. I am predestined and adopted as His son, according to God’s pleasure! (v5)
4. I am accepted and brought into God’s grace! (v6)
5. I am redeemed by His blood! I am forgiven, according to the riches of His grace! (v7)
6. Grace abounds to me in all wisdom and prudence! (v7-8) 
7. God has made known the mystery of His will to me! (v9-10)
8. I have been given an inheritance in Christ! (v11-12)
9. I am sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise! He is my guarantee! (v13-14)

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Forgivable!

Forgiven! This is a word that’s easy to overlook. If you’ve been in church or around Christians for very long, you may have heard it so many times that you don’t even stop to think about it. But today we want you to take a few minutes to think about what it really means to be forgiven—and to be “forgivable.”

“Even before He made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.” ~ Ephesians 1:4 (NLT)

Dear friend, before God created you, He knew every mistake you’d make and sin you’d commit—even your worst moments. But He still chose to make you, to love you, and to forgive you—to make you “without fault in his eyes;” another version says “blameless.”

That’s the good news of Grace: If you receive Christ, your sins are erased. Yet most of us struggle to believe it. Why? Because we often think God is a taskmaster and He is mad at us.

When something goes wrong in our lives, we ask, “Why me, God?” And we imagine God responding, “Because you did. wrong and made me angry!” But that’s not how God operates. 

Isaiah 43:25 says, “I am the God who forgives your sins, and I do this because of who I am. I will not hold your sins against you” (GNT). 

Unlike us, God doesn’t hold grudges. Romans 8:1 confirms, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (NIV). God doesn’t replay your sins. He erases them. If you’ve committed your life to Christ, here’s what has changed for you: You’re a part of God’s family, and your sins are gone; washed in the sea of forgetfulness.

• This is why Jesus came—to save you and me from judgment and to secure our place in God’s family.
• You’re not waiting for forgiveness; it’s already yours.
• Can you take a deep breath and say, “Thank You, God, that I’m forgiven because of Jesus!”

Goals and Plans

Before we end, I want to share with you something briefly that Ps Rick Warren shared a while ago that blessed me very much. Dear friend, setting goals isn’t just a good idea for productivity. It’s a spiritual discipline, like prayer, fasting, giving, and reading your Bible.

• In fact, goal setting can be an act of stewardship because we try to make the most of all God has given us.
• We can waste our lives. Plenty of people do it! To make the most of our lives and invest them in a way that outlasts us, we’ll need goals.
• Even God sets goals! The Bible says,

“[God] planned to bring all of history to its goal in Christ. Then Christ would be the head of everything in heaven and on earth.” ~ Ephesians 1:10 (GW)

God didn’t sit around and let the history of the world unfold in a way it found appropriate. He planned history…woow!! God has goals for the church. God has goals for every facet of the universe.

History is moving to a climax. There will be a judgment day, when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. History is moving toward that goal—because God planned it that way.

• I believe if God plans, then we should too. God wants us to be like Him in all facets of our lives, including setting goals.
• Sometimes we say, “I’m not going to plan. I’m just going to trust God and go with the flow.”
• That’s not spiritual. It’s foolish! Please, we shouldn’t go one more day without making plans for this week, this month, and this year.

Rick Warren says that the Bible has more than 7,000 promises from God to us — promises of success, confidence, health, prosperity, strength, wisdom, and more. Why does God make these promises? Because He wants you and I to learn to trust Him.

• When you set a goal, don’t focus on the problems; focus on the promises.
• Find a promise in God’s Word that will take you to your goal.
• The size of your God determines the size of your goal.

Let’s start making some plans, and trust God to fulfill His promise to bring everything in history—including you and I—to its goal in Christ. Today, what promises from God’s Word can inspire and direct your goals? How does your eternal perspective affect the kind of goals you set?

Hey, you're blessed and highly favoured and dearly loved! Do share your lessons from Ephesians 1. Remember to tag us and your friends on 📲:
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Disclaimer: this post contains portions of messages and text originally shared by Ps Rick Warren (who is one of my mentors in the faith).