3 Blessings God Has Prepared for You

God…blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ. Eph 1:3

Is your view of  God’s blessings the same as His?

Consider. Have you ever been disappointed that God didn’t “bless  you” in the way you’d hoped? 

 Maybe…

• You didn’t succeed in school or sports as you had expected or…
• You didn’t get that job that you really wanted or…
• The person that you loved, didn’t love you back or…
• Your kids didn’t excel as you hoped they would or…
• You didn’t receive that answer to prayer that you petitioned for.

I sincerely hope that you’re not offended by God due to His lack of “blessing” or the lack of answers to your prayers.

But frankly, God’s commitment to us is not in material blessings…although He does promise to take care of our needs (Matt. 6:33).

But, He is no less God, and no less true and real when He withholds material blessings from us…Job found that out.

What’s my point? God’s ways are much higher than ours and His divine thought of blessing is much higher than ours.

Then you might ask, “What are the blessings that God has planned for us?”

The New Testament blessings are spiritual, not material.

Ephesians 1:3 says,

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ.”

These “spiritual blessings” are focused on “sonship”—that is, God’s heart’s desire to have many full-grown sons to express Him. When we see God’s goal of “sonship,” our view of blessing will change.

Our view of God’s blessings becomes no longer a matter of how successful we’ll be, but of how much God is able to work out His purpose for sonship in us. Practically this means how much of Himself He can dispense into us.

Ephesians 1:3-14  reveals at least three  spiritual blessings for you to receive by faith.  They’re all related to God Himself.

It’s good to give Him your thanks and praise for each one. By receiving these spiritual blessings with thanks and praise you’ll be brought further by God into the experience of His sonship.

1.  God, the Father blessed you by choosing you to be holy and predestinating you unto sonship.

Ephesians 1:4-5 says,

“Even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blemish before Him in love, predestinating us unto sonship through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.”

If you’re a believer reading this post, you may have realized that your salvation didn’t originate with you. That’s because God “chose you before the foundation of the world,” from among millions of people, to be “holy”–separated unto Him and saturated with His holy nature. But that’s only the process.

God, the Father’s goal is sonship.

That’s because He needs many sons to express all the riches of His divine life.

First, for God, our Father to bring us into His “sonship” requires that we experience a divine birth with His divine life (John 1:12-13).

Second, He causes us to grow in His divine life (1 Pet. 2:2-3; 1 Cor. 3:6-7).

Third,  He brings us into the maturity in His life (Heb. 6:1)  that we might be qualified to be His heirs who inherit all that God is for our enjoyment (Rom. 8:17-19).

To carry out His choosing,  the Father marked us out, so that He could dispense His divine life and holy nature into us. What a blessing! We should simply receive this blessing by faith with our  thanks and praise,

 “Father, praise you for Your eternal purpose to have many sons to express You. I thank you for choosing me to be holy. I also thank you for predestinating me unto sonship–that I might share Your life and have the position to inherit You. I ask You to dispense more of Your divine life and holy nature into me so that I can fully participate in Your sonship.”

2.   God the Son blessed you by redeeming you so that you might become God’s inheritance.

If we had never fallen and become sinful, the accomplishment of redemption would never have been necessary. However, neither would God’s wisdom and far-reaching love been revealed to us.

But see what Ephesians 1:7-11 says,

“In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of offenses, according to the riches of His grace, which He caused to abound to us in all wisdom and prudence, Making known to us the mystery of His will…In whom also we were designated as an inheritance.

We can only thank the Lord Jesus for His wonderful redemption that brought us back to God’s original intention that we might inherit God and He might inherit us.

Based on His redemption, Christ now dispenses all His unsearchable riches into us (Eph 3:8) to make us God’s inheritance for His enjoyment and God our inheritance for our enjoyment.

“Lord Jesus, thank you for accomplishing redemption on the cross for me. Praise you that through Your redemption, God’s righteousness has been fully satisfied so I can now receive the rich dispensing of Yourself into me, making me God’s inheritance and God my inheritance. Praise you for such wisdom that brought me back into God’s original purpose of sonship.”

3.   God the Spirit blessed you by sealing you and giving Himself as the pledge of your divine inheritance.

Ephesians 1:13-14 says,

“In whom you also, having heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, in Him also believing, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of the promise, who is the pledge of your inheritance unto the redemption of the acquired possession, to the praise of His glory.“

After you’re redeemed, God’s Holy Spirit reaches you as a living “seal” to apply God’s image to your inner being, marking you out as God’s inheritance.  It’s like an ink  seal that seals a certain article as the property of it’s owner.

Every day we need to  receive more of  the Spirit’s dispensing, sealing us inwardly with more of God’s essence until we are entirely saturated with Him and fully bear God’s image.

For our encouragement and anticipation, the Holy Spirit also becomes a “pledge” to us, a sweet foretaste of the full enjoyment we’ll have when we meet the Lord and of the fullest enjoyment we’ll have for eternity.

We should simply thank and praise our God for His continual dispensing through the Spirit’s sealing and pledging us until the day that we meet the Lord,

“Father, thank you for putting Your Holy Spirit into me as a living seal to mark me out as Your inheritance. Thank you also for giving me the Spirit as a sweet pledge or foretaste of my full enjoyment of You for eternity.”   

We can only thank and praise God for the “spiritual blessings” that will cause us to participate in full sonship that we might inherit and enjoy God now and for eternity!

If you’ve appreciated these spiritual blessings in Christ please take a moment to share your appreciation in a comment to this post.

References and Further Resources:

• The inspiration for this post came from the following books by Witness Lee:
  • Life-study of Ephesians, Messages 2-4, 6, 12 & 13
  • Elders’ Training, Book 6—Points of the Truth in Paul’s Epistles, Chapter 6
• You may also enjoy this Hymn on the topic of this post:
  •  The divine dispensing starts with the Father
• Here is a post by another blogger that also addresses God’s desire for “sonship:”
  • The Center of Paul’s Gospel – Romans chapter 8, God’s dispensing, and the sonship
• Photo Credit: Clark Russell