Every Christian desires, prays for, and seeks God’s blessing in his or her life. It strengthens us to hear the words of benediction, “May the LORD bless you and keep you…” Similarly, the apostle Paul blesses the people of God in Ephesians 1 with an extended offering of praise for God’s grace and spiritual blessings bestowed upon us.
The What of Spiritual Blessing
But what does it mean to be richly “blessed” of God? Often, we measure our sense of being blessed according to the presence, or lack thereof, of earthly comforts—housing, schooling, cashflow, clothing, pets, even just ease of life, all tend to be metrics that we use in an effort to determine blessing. Such measuring is quite natural for us. However, scripture wonderfully reorients our hearts and minds, helping us to correctly define or measure God’s blessing.
A quick scan of Ephesians chapter one reveals God’s blessing to be found in such gifts as his electing and saving grace (v4), his adopting us into his household as his children (v5), his redeeming us from our sins (v7), his giving us a heavenly inheritance (v11), and sending us his Holy Spirit as a guarantee or “seal” unto the integrity of his promises.
The How of Spiritual Blessings
Most importantly however, is how we come to possess these immeasurable blessings. Notice v3, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” You see, the blessings of God are not individually packaged, or experienced a-la carte. Rather, every spiritual blessing is in Christ and through faith we are in him, and he is in us. To belong to him and be found in him by faith is to possess all good things for this life and the life to come.