How can we not be excited about God?
I’ve been working on a short message from Ephesians 1:3-10 that I’m teaching on at our church’s monthly ladies’ breakfast. As I prayed about what to discuss, this subject kept floating back into my head: regaining our awe and wonder of God. Enter in the magnificent blessings we have in Christ.
The apathy is easy. The laziness is easy. Skipping our faithful reading of the Word is easy. And then we grow numb and forget who our Lord is and what exactly he has done for us. No wonder the Israelites were commanded to REMEMBER HIM:
“Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates” (Deut 6:4-9).
Oh, how we easily forget and lose the holy reverence. Write this everywhere, God said. And they still forgot, just as we do today.
Paul writes in Ephesians that we have received every spiritual blessing because of Christ. Every. One. Name it: election, redemption, grace, forgiveness, adoption to be sons and daughters of God…since Christ provided a way to be united with himself through his incarnation, death, and subsequent resurrection, these aforementioned things have been made accessible.
Tell me, then, what excuse I have for lacking passion and excitement about my Lord. Look at what he has done! Look at who he is! For what we do tells others who we are, and his actions show me a loving, sacrificial, grace-filled, inexplicably perfect Father. What have I done to deserve such spiritual blessings?
Nothing. That’s wild.
The door is open. We all have the opportunity to accept or reject what Christ has done and what God desires for us.
Look up, I beg you, and take it. Confess your sin. Confess Jesus as Lord. Receive these blessings that are awaiting you, and know God as your perfect, loving Father.
Remember what he has done and what he promises to do.
