210321 Board Devotional: Things That God Has Done

This board devotional was born out of a desire to glorify God for what He has done. I wanted to express my deep appreciation to Him for His love toward us. If you could open your Bibles to Ephesians we will be going through three different passages in it MIGHT WAIT A MOMENT UNTIL EVERYONE IS READY

Past

Ephesians 1:3-6 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, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.

God wasn’t miserly - He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing - we have not been shorted one iota

God in His kindness picked us for His team, He chose us, He adopted us

God puts us before Him - not in our own merit but in His Son’s

God lovingly planned for us

God did all of this for us and it costs us nothing

He freely bestowed it upon us in Christ

It is all of grace

Present

Eph 5:22-30 For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body.

God has blessed us with a Head, a Leader, a Chief, a Ruler - His own Son, Jesus Christ

God has saved us

God has put us under the responsibility of His own Son - because no one could do a better job

Christ loves us, sacrificially to the point of giving Himself up literally

Christ has cleansed us, Christ has distinguished us from the world by setting us apart, Christ has made us holy and blameless

Christ feeds and nurtures His beloved church - we are His body

What then?

Eph 3:14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.

Because of our access to God (v12) this we kneel in awe, in worship before the Father - why?

because He has bestowed upon us

Riches

Strength through His Spirit

The indwelling of Christ within Us

Because He has drilled us down deep into love - so that we might know Him

This should cause us to rejoice because He has done more than we could ever imagine

We ought to glorify Him now, today, tomorrow and forever