"Blessed
With All Spiritual Blessings"
2)
Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord
Jesus Christ.
3)
Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ:
4)
According as he
hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be
holy and without blame before him in love:
5)
Having
predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself,
according to the good pleasure of his will,
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he holy scriptures tell us that we are
blessed with all spiritual blessings "in Christ." To understand this,
we must understand that "in" put before Christ or God means "in
union with." Therefore, being blessed with these blessings "in
Christ," means that we are blessed as we are "in union with"
Him! Conversely, if we are not
unified with Him, then, we will not enjoy His blessings.
In that we are buried with Him in
baptism, we are baptized into His death, killing the "old" and raising
to life a new man. Notice that we are
united with Him into His death. Being
united with the Lord is much like being united in marriage, except that in
marriage, two people are united as one flesh. Spiritually, one united with
Christ is joined with Him as one spirit.
What we must be willing to acknowledge
is that once God is accepted into the individual life, all is spiritual.
We are then bound to accepting nothing, naturally. You see, in that we
have been "engrafted" into the family of God and subsequently, the
spiritual way of life, we cannot look to the same "means" of
"deliverance." In that we belong to the Lord, we must utilize His solutions to all of our problems. We,
now, belong to Him, are motivated by Him
and it is He Who has become responsible for us. Therefore, we need to allow Him
to do His job.
Unless we become sensitive to the Holy Spirit and His direction, it will be
difficult for us to be blessed by Him. You see, in that
His blessings are spiritually based, one must be attuned to Him in order to
gain full benefit of one's salvation.
It is tragic that so many saints of God
persist in trying to handle their own problems, work out their own situations
and better their own circumstances when God's
plan for this walk has already been worked out. You see, we have been brought
in to fulfill His purpose, rather
than to participate in its "writing."
Because we "work" so hard
after salvation, most live this entire life in the Lord without joy. You see,
this life is orchestrated by God that we not have to "struggle." This
is why He speaks of the "joy of salvation." That "joy" is
embodied in not having to
"struggle" anymore. Salvation
comes in being free from worry and being able to rest in Him. If we are
as "encumbered" as the unredeemed with the cares of this life, from
what have we been delivered?
If we would ever exercise some
spiritual "nerve" by accepting what
God says the way that He says it, we would find that we would. We would begin
to be "helped"--and we are in great need of help. As time winds down,
we will need help as we have never imagined.
The most important "help"
that we can experience from God is learning to line up our minds with the mind of God. Once one adopts that mind, he will
find that he thinks like the Lord and
consequently, acts as the Lord. Practically,
what does this mean? For one thing, we would enter our tests as did the Lord:
with the knowledge that the (our) victory has already been won! There was never a time that Jesus doubted how He
would "come out." He had to
have complete and utter confidence in the Father so that, through that
confidence, the Father would be glorified through Him.
In case we have lost sight of our
"mission," it is good that we be reminded that our sole purpose after
salvation is to win others to Christ. As "miserable" as this world
is, how will we accomplish this if we are no different from others? Men are
unhappy and miserable and the more technologically advanced we become, the more
dissatisfied we are. How are men "won," today and
what are they looking for? Man is looking for peace and tries everything to find it. Since there is
neither joy nor peace in this life, we will have to be the ones to introduce
it to Man.
The only men who will be able to win
others are those who appreciate how
they came to salvation. We seem to forget that we enjoy salvation only because of Christ. If it were not
for Him, we would have no salvation. While His ultimate goal was to get us as
"ambassadors," we came to
Him out of an acknowledged need for change; we came to Him because we were
sinners who needed to be saved.
We are, no doubt, some of the most
selfish, spoiled "children" on the face of the earth. We do, indeed,
possess all that created Man could ever ask for--and some on top of that! "Blocking"
our blessings is our lack of spiritual commitment. Now, when one says this,
many feel to take issue, citing that they are regular church attendees, serve
on numerous committees and go on all the
church "trips." Somewhere along the line, we have come to equate
"commitment" with "works." Do we not know that a man can
attend a church most of his life, work faithfully, yet still never really belong to the Lord?
What does it mean to really belong to Him? It means that one does
not think in his own behalf but does, at all times, what will benefit the Lord.
It means that before one acts or responds, he stops to consult the Lord and
puts representing Him first, at all times ! It means
that one ceases from protecting himself, and lays himself open to the will of
God--no matter what that means for him. This is the only way that one who is
"blessed with all spiritual blessings" will be able to bless others
and this is all that makes having those blessings, profitable. n