Part 1 of a devotional series through the book of Ephesians.

 

Read the full transcript below:

“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.” – Ephesians 1:11-12

 God predestined because it pleased Him. He purposed, so now we praise Him.

We were chosen. We are now His children.

We were adopted and thereby, accepted in the Beloved.

The book of Ephesians has been called the Holy of Holies of the New Testament. In the first fourteen verses alone you find truths that you could spend a lifetime trying to fully understand and still come up an eternity short. In these verses we see God’s predetermined purpose enacted by each person of the Trinity. Let’s take a moment to try and fathom the complexity of predestination; specifically God’s complete sovereignty and omniscience over the fate of all individuals who have ever existed. Now think about the fact that the Scriptures (beginning with the Garden of Eden) seem to indicate that mankind has been given the free will to accept or reject God… Okay, did your head explode? If it didn’t, then let’s go ahead and take these passages at face value. (We’ll leave free will for another time.)

We were chosen by God to be His children through adoption. It is not because we were so cute, nor were we so incredibly gifted that He wanted us to be His first pick for dodge ball. He chose us simply because of His grace and love for us as His creation. We were created for His good pleasure. When we sinned as a race, it drove a wedge between a Holy God and a now unholy people. God would not allow His people to be lost to the enemy. He knew that when given the choice, man would give in to sin’s temptation. He was heart-broken, of course, but He was not at all surprised by Adam and Eve’s actions. God had a plan: A plan that would make a people with a predilection for sin able to be welcomed into His kingdom and proclaimed blameless. That plan involved sending His Beloved Son as a man to take the sins of the entire world on His shoulders, and judging that very sin in the death of His Son.

Sin must be dealt with. It is not simply thrown aside and overlooked, because sin puts enmity between God and man. God needed to deal with sin once and for all. Thankfully, Jesus was willing to feel the sting of death, and more importantly, the crushing weight of God’s holy wrath so that we wouldn’t have to. Did we have anything to do with this amazing plan? Absolutely NOT! Did He do this because we deserved it? Child, please. (That doesn’t really work, does it?) But the plan wasn’t completed. God showed His power over both sin and death by raising Jesus from the dead! We were chosen by God, saved by Jesus, and sealed by the Holy Spirit so that we may be the praise of His glory.

He purchased, so now we are His possession.

We’ve been redeemed and we receive His riches.

We’ve trusted in His salvation. We’ve been sealed by the Holy Spirit.

We are His, and for that same reason, all the praise is His.

 

“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.” – Ephesians 1:13-14