“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.” (Ephesians 1:3)
To be blessed in the heavenly realms is some kind of shorthand for saying that God is looking with favour on us. God, who is in heaven, looks on us from heaven now and sees us through the eyes of Jesus — He sees us as His own children.
And what do parents do for their children? Provide for their every need. God seeks to bless us from heaven (God’s home) in the present (our current home) and then bring us to the new creation (our eternal destiny).
All of this is God’s blessing that goes with us in every moment. God’s blessings are not just fleeting (here for a moment and then gone) but go with us through our lives, which never end.
Our eternal lives do not just begin after death or at the end of time. They start the moment of our baptism into Jesus and when faith is planted within us. We are already living in eternity now!
That means that in every human moment — good or bad — God is at work bringing blessings to our present and extending it into eternity. In our hard times, God is preparing us for blessings in the future. In our good times, God is preparing us for blessings in the future.
How often haven’t you thought, “How am I going to get through this? God is against me”, only to look back and see God was preparing you for an unexpected blessing? Because God sits outside of time and space, yet Jesus is present in time and space through the Holy Spirit, God prepares our blessings from eternity but delivers them in time — now.
We are being prepared for God’s blessing as we prepare for the blessing of the second advent of the Messiah. This liminal time — sometimes called “the thin space” — is where heaven touches earth right now, as God’s blessings are poured upon us here in time and space.
Prayer
Lord, I thank You for the gifts and blessings that You have given me. Lead me in this life, even when I fail as a sinful human, touch me with Your Holy Spirit, and let my life always point to You and the salvation You have given to us all.
Stay encouraged!
Pastor Mike
