1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are at Ephesus and who are faithful in Christ Jesus: 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3 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, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love 5 He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. Ephesians 1:1–6
If you’ve traveled by air and experienced a terminal in a large city, if you’ve attended a professional sporting event in a stadium, if you’ve been sucked into the vortex of two major highways in rush hour, you can get a sense of the mass of humanity with whom we share the globe. We can easily understand that we are but one soul in the midst of billions.
If you run it back to the beginning of time, the crowd of people who have walked this earth is unfathomable and we are but an infinitesimal speck under a powerful microscope. Yet, we are counted among the saints to whom Paul writes, he himself singularly plucked from the multitudes to serve a New Master and to pen this message to us via the Ephesians. His selection did not come as an afterthought but was predetermined before the foundation of the world, as was our sainthood.
The fact that the Father predestined us for this vaunted position becomes crystal clear when you consider the odds that I might, on account of my own devices, share even a sliver of the heavenly places with God the father of our Lord Jesus Christ and be freely bestowed such grace and peace! From under a massive pile of his spiritual blessings I can barely squeak out “blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!”
I am forever in awe of this transaction, as was Paul. He had to continuously contemplate where he was heading (to Damascus to round up Christians) and the role he now played as an Apostle “untimely born.” He asks as I do, did I deserve “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” Did I deserve a place at the family table as an “adopted son.” Was I due the “kind intention of His will?” Most certainly not! But here I am, able to marvel along with the author at the “grace in which we now stand.”
This act of love, grace, and kindness was intentional and purposeful on God’s part, on the drawing board long before he created the waters of the deep, light and darkness, and all the firmament.
Yet, we look back in our temporal history on this planet and marvel for sure at the per chance encounter we had with a country preacher, who struck a raw nerve and pulled a heartstring, and all this came about on the chancel rail. But he was, unknowingly, a modern day apostle sharing the simple gospel with just one soul, as Paul did for sure in Ephesus some two thousand years ago.
How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? Romans 10:14
Therein lies the mystery of the ages.
See also “Above My Pay Grade.”
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