We sing a song that reminds us to “count our blessings” and “name them one by one.” One of my summer goals is to do that. Take a legal pad and pen and just take off writing down all my blessings! I, like you, will count my blessings which will include both temporal and spiritual blessings. During Bible class yesterday, one of wisest people I know stated aloud, “We should count our blessings, not our troubles.” Wow, I agree. But, unfortunately, I have done just this opposite. I have been guilty of focusing on my problems instead of the “good things” in my life.
Ephesians 1:3-14 teaches us so much about our blessings “in Christ.” This passage says, “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, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory. In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.”
The spiritual blessings we have in Christ far outweigh and dwarf any temporal blessings we may have. Based on the text our blessings in Christ are:
1. We are a chosen people (v. 4).
2. We are adopted as children (v. 5-6).
3. We are redeemed and forgiven (v.7).
4. We can understand true wisdom (v. 8).
5. We can understand God’s Will for us (v. 9-10).
6. We have an inheritance (v. 11-12).
7. God’s promise is sealed with the Holy Spirit(13-14).
Wow! What a list and this is just from one section of Scripture that has been left for us! Of course, in order to realize these blessings, one has to be “in Christ.” Why? Because we must follow Jesus. John 14:6 and Acts 4:10-12 teach, instruct, remind, and direct us to the only One that can give us eternal life and the only blessings we need. As I work on my “blessings list,” I will start with these.
