“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,” Ephesians 1:3
“Blessed be the God and Father” Blessed, meaning deserving of all our praise and commitment, and worthy to be worshipped and adored. Blessed be the God and Father. “Our Father who is in heaven, Oh how holy is Your name!” Come, let us bring the proper celebration and honor our God and Father deserves! Let us fall down in wonder before Him. Is there any other fitting response we can bring to Him in the light of Who He is and what He has given us in Christ?
Firstly, look to Who He is: He “alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see. To Him be honor and eternal dominion! Amen.” 1 Timothy 6:16 He is the Unchanging One. He is the Holy One. The Eternal One. He is the Creator and sustainer of all things. He is just and wrathful, yet also the possessor of all goodness, mercy, and grace. He is the judge of righteousness. The God of love. He is the giver of the Son. The “Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Who can stand before Him? In light of His splendor and majesty the psalmist penned, “Come, let us worship and bow down, Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker.” Psalms 95:6 We stand in wonder and awe before Him. We are struck by the beauty of the knowledge of God.
Secondly look upon the praiseworthiness of God in seeing what He has given us in Christ. This awesome God, our God, “has blessed us”! We could spend our entire lives gazing upon and blessing our God for no other reason than His pure worthiness and it would be enough. The sheer magnitude of the majesty of His character and nature will forever fascinate us. But in His kindness and because of His own will, He has blessed us. What praise inspiring revelation! The God of the universe has blessed us. “What is man that You magnify him, And that You are concerned about him,” Job 7:17 In the light of His Infinity we are so small. We are truly infants in the light of the Infinite. Oh how worthy and deserving of praise He is. What is man that you magnify him? How is it that such a powerful and mighty God could be so concerned about us? And not only concerned, but willingly give such extravagant generosity to man? We have been blessed and blessed by God “with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,” Think of it! This passage doesn’t say “some” spiritual blessings, it says “every” Spiritual blessing! Every single spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms have been given to us and are found in Christ. All the provisions of God discovered in His beauty are enjoyed in our placement in Christ. God our Father “made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” 2 Corinthians 5:21 Christ became everything we were, so we could become everything He is! In Christ, God united Himself to humanity so humanity could be united to God. He dressed himself in skin, so we could be dressed in His glory. Consider Christ, our wonderful savior. Look upon the riches of the excellencies of Him. Feast on every spiritual blessing in Him. “who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Philippians 2:6-8 Christ laid aside his honor and emptied Himself of His rightful glory. His poverty and humility became our riches and blessings. Oh the glorious and immeasurable goodness of God. “All the promises of God find their YES in Him.” 2 Corinthians 1:20 Every single promise found in God and uttered in His Word has found it’s complete and final yes in Christ. What extravagant favor we have. What undeserved and unearned favor! I can think of no greater wealth a man could possess. An unknown popper in Christ is richer then the most powerful pagan king in the world. We possess God. We possess His promises. We are blessed with every spiritual blessing.
“Have Christ, and thou hast with Him the excellency and variety of all blessings both of Heaven and earth.” Isaac Ambrose
“For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.” Colossians 2:9-10 ESV All the fullness of God lives in Him, so all the fullness of God is in us. We no longer live from our lack. We approach everything from His fullness. We live and stand in our blessings in Christ. Think on these things. Let us meditate upon and consider the spiritual blessings we have received in Christ. They are endless! To explore them would take more words then can be written in this book. For our purposes, let us focus on and explore three. Namely, the heavenly blessing of face to face fellowship with God, eternal life, and complete holiness.
The most supreme spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ is face to face fellowship with God. For all eternity we will behold His beauty and explore the infinite knowledge of His majesty. In the heavenly places the saints see Him fully. They stand before Him unveiled and unashamed. What wonderful and awesome blessing. In Christ we have been given complete access to stand in the very presence of God. His blood shed and body broken secured our eternal unbroken union with God. We have come into the presence of God by the new and living way: the curtain of Christ’s flesh. We are confident to enter the holy place because of His blood: we step in through Christ. We draw near with a pure heart in full assurance of faith, our hearts sprinkled clean from the evil conscience we had and our bodies washed from our evil deeds with pure water. In Christ we have been blessed with the spiritual wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God. From now and through eternity He will be our treasure to discover and explore. “And we know that the Son of God has come, and he has given us understanding so that we can know the true God. And now we live in fellowship with the true God because we live in fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the only true God, and he is eternal life.”1 John 5:20 What a privilege we have to know the Infinite One. We have been given spiritual understanding in Christ. We have been invited into fellowship with God. This favor and knowledge is extended to us in Christ and is absolutely stunning. It confounds me that God invites us to be close friends of His for now and forever. In this dimension of time and space we see through glass dimly, but one day we will see Him fully. Through the Holy Spirit, we have illuminated hearts, enabling us to see the glory of God shining in the face of Christ. What immense blessing: to actually know God and walk with God, to go on the endless eternal adventure of discovering His person, to explore His character and nature in Christ Jesus. The blessing of divine revelation has opened our eyes to see the excellencies of Christ and experience the pure presence and love of God. Yes for all eternity, but today IN Christ.
Secondly, we have been blessed with life. In the heavenlies in Christ there is eternal abundant life. There is no death. There is no sickness. The work of the enemy to kill, still, and destroy has no home in Christ and the heavenlies. The blessing of life to the saints of God is in IN Christ. The life of God issues from Him and through Him. He is the risen one. He tasted death once for all and will never taste it again. He Himself is the resurrection. In Him the power of death has been broken and as His people we too will experience victory over death. “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23 The effect of the sin is death reigning and controlling us. The corruption and decay of man throughout the ages is the clear evidence of our inheritance from Adam. Through the one man, Adam, death came into being. Through the New Man, Christ, life has been given and that far more abundantly than the consequence of death. If death came into being and had power through Adam, then life has even greater power in Christ our Lord. “He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” 2 Timothy 1:9-10 Jesus is our life giver. The light of the life of God shining in the valley of the shadow of death. Oh the glorious goodness of God in Christ Jesus. We have been blessed with such riches. Life eternal! This blessing is ours today in Christ. We are partakers of His divine nature and life here and now. This eternal life began the moment we believed and came to know Christ. At salvation it comes as a seed and this seed grows and blooms as we walk by faith and not by sight.
Thirdly, our inheritance in the heavenlies in Christ is complete holiness. In Heaven, we will experience total freedom from the weight of this world. The saints in heaven are set apart and freed from all that kills, steals, and destroys. In Heaven and for all eternity we will stand in the beauty of His holiness. We will be completely separate and above this realm. In Christ, we not only have the hope of complete holiness for all eternity, we have the promise to experience it here and now. The blessing of holiness is ours in Christ. By the Holy Spirit we walk in His holiness. Our set apart and distinct culture and character isn’t achieved by our performance and keeping of the law, but a gift we receive by the promise of the Holy Spirit and faith in the Son. Our holiness as His people isn’t reserved for a future time in heaven, but is absolutely available to us now on earth. We are in this world, but not of it. We are a holy set apart people in the midst of a perverse generation. We are a people within a people. The church: the called out ones. The set apart ones. We are the light in the darkness. The pillar of Truth among the doctrines of man. The ambassadors of Christ to a foreign land. The embassy of Heaven on earth walking in the beauty of His holiness.
Through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us we experience and taste these spiritual blessings in the heavenly places here and now. “It is God who enables us, along with you, to stand firm for Christ. He has commissioned us, and he has identified us as his own by placing the Holy Spirit in our hearts as the first installment that guarantees everything he has promised us.” 2 Corinthians 1:21-22 The Holy Spirit is the guarantee of everything He has promised. The down payment or deposit of every blessing. We are “…those who have experienced the good things of heaven and shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the power of the age to come…” Hebrews 6:4-5 Through the Holy Spirit we experience the good things of heaven and walk in the power of the age to come. There is a fullness of blessing and promise that will only be unveiled to us at the second coming of Christ or when in heaven. Whichever comes first for us. But by the Holy Spirit we experience and taste the age to come here and now. The Lord’s prayer for God’s “kingdom to come and will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Is released in the Holy Spirit. Christ has given us the gift of the Holy Spirit, who applies and communicates the life of God and all that is supplied to us in Christ. By the Spirit we receive an empowerment to bear all the fruits and manifestations of God’s character and nature here on earth. He is the comforter and counselor. Strengthening us and instructing us. “…for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God,”1 Corinthians 2:10-12 He is the great revealer: Disclosing to us the mind and will of God, inviting us into the depths of God, and unveiling the things freely given to us by God in Christ.
The chief thing, the one necessary thing, the one required response is to believe. To stand, remain, and rest in our placement in Christ, knowing that is where all fullness and blessing is found. When we receive gifts what do we say? Thank you. We don’t spurn or detest the gift. We don’t reject the gift. We receive it and say thank you. This way, we bring honor to the gift giver. It doesn’t do honor to God when we reject the gift and blessing we have in Christ. It doesn’t give him honor when we allow our shame and attitude of unworthiness to prevent us from receiving or simply saying thank you. We have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. We can reject it or accept it, but our response will not change the fact that the gift has been given. God determined in Himself to bless us. It was His idea and His doing. No one counseled Him. He is self sufficient. He needs no one. His will issues from His own desire and wisdom. It is not carried out due to another’s demand. From His own kindness and desire He gave us a gift. He gave us His Son and with Him everything else. (Romans 8:31-39) God must be blessed! He is worthy of all praise. His stunning character and nature demands it and in the light of His blessing to us, worship is the only fitting response we can give Him.
By Micah Level