Ephesians 1:3 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.

Every spiritual blessing? How can that be real? Why don’t we feel like we have been given every spiritual blessing? I still suffer loss and sadness, pain and frustration, selfishness, exhaustion, and do not feel in the least bit spiritual. Where are the blessings? It’s fine to preach a great sermon, an eloquent exposition on the nature of God and his rich grace that gives us all that we need, that gives his own life to save us from sin. These things can be said and believed, but speak to me of blessing and I ask “why don’t I feel it?” And to what purpose if I don’t feel it?

…even as he chose us before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

Certainly, we are his holy people, but we are clearly not blameless! Is the blessing failing to do its work? But the blessing is not to make me superficially happy, it is to change my spirit before God. But in what way? I have repented and still repent; the question remains: how do I see this blessing in reality, in real time working real things?

In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

Here’s the ground work: what ever God does in and for us, it is to the praise of Jesus Christ and his work of love! It is his act of predestination, his adoption, his will and the it’s for his praise as he blesses us in the beloved. If this blessing is for the sake of Christ how does it effect us still?

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

United with God! All things in heaven and earth are to be united in God! So this is why we have every spiritual blessing; for surely in God himself is found every spiritual blessing, and it is in him that we are to be made one according to his purposeful plan.

Lavish, what a word! His grace has been lavished on us! But this lavishing is not random or just for our feeling of fulfillment, it is according to his plan. God is generous because he purposes to be with wisdom and insight. He is intentionally generous about his grace, because he is intentional about bringing about the unity of all things in himself, and in himself is an abundance beyond measure.

But this all for the fulness of time, and in the mean time we have been given his Spirit “who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.”

In this we see our nothingness, for all that we have been made to be and all that we are in Christ is not us but God’s masterful plan. And yet, we are everything! For God’s masterful plan is us! So be encouraged, though you weep and are without strength and do not feel in your flesh the power of the blessing given. For God has a plan and he does not fail. We move on because we have this hope which is incorruptible.

Mean time, the purpose of God’s plan is to make us holy and blameless before him. This is the greatest of spiritual blessings; indeed it is every spiritual blessing, for holiness is the life of God that gives and keeps on giving to sustain the life and joy of his creation. For this reason it is in love that we were predestined. And in this we see that even in this life of pain, we are receiving every blessing. For the sufferings of Christ are dwelling in us and transforming us through the tears to be a people who knows how to live for another, disregarding the shame of the cross for the joy set before us in the one who bore it and in whom the fulness of God was pleased to dwell so that we might be pleased to dwell within the fulness of God.