The book of Ephesians is one of Paul’s prison epistles. An epistle is a letter. And a prison epistle simply means that Paul wrote this letter while he was in prison. The first recipients of this letter were the Ephesians at the church in Ephesus. But then the letter was circulated to many other churches in the area. This book reveals the mystery of the church (which before now God had kept hidden or veiled from believers) and tells us what we are to do based on who we are in Christ.
While I enjoyed reading the first chapter of Ephesians for the umpteenth time, nothing really hit me over the head until I was at our BSF leaders’ meeting on Saturday morning. As we discussed our answers to the lesson’s questions and reviewed the highlights of the chapter, I noticed this phrase in verse 4 as if I’d never read it before: “For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world…” God gave me a fresh awareness and appreciation for this phrase.
Before I was born…in eternity past…when there was nothing…before He created anything…God chose me to be His child. He chose me to be adopted as His child into His family. He chose me for His purpose and His pleasure. He redeemed me. He already owned me because He had created me. But when He redeemed me, He bought me out of the slavery of sin and lovingly took me into His family.
Amazing! In a world where so many things and people are discarded as useless, God chose me. It’s hard to understand why He chose me. I did nothing to deserve anything from Him except death, eternal punishment and separation from Him. But for some reason, which I won’t understand until eternity, He wanted me to be His child and serve, love and worship Him.
As if that isn’t great enough, God didn’t stop there. He didn’t just choose me, adopt me into His family and leave me alone to fend for myself. He also has equipped me with every blessing necessary to succeed. At my moment of salvation, He gave me all I need to be successful both in this life and in the life to come. This list of blessings is recounted in verses 4 to 14. In the original Greek text, these verses are actually one long sentence. This shows us that all of these blessings are connected to each other through our relationship with God in Christ.
If you feel that God is tugging at your heart, have you responded? If He has called you to be His child, are you glorifying Him and living His purpose for your life every day?