Ephesians 1:3 ¶ All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ.
In this verse it is quite clear we are to praise God. But why?
Because God has done something specific He has blessed us!
With what has He blessed us? Every spiritual blessing! What is a spiritual blessing?
Here the word blessing in the Greek is the word eulogia, it is where we get our modern English word Eulogy from.
When we come to Christ we die to our old lives and we are made new. God eulogizes us with good things when we come into Christ! God has good things to say concerning us not because of things we have done but because of the things Christ has done.
Spiritual here is the word pneumatikos it is where we get our English word pneumatics which pertains to the use of air or in this case breath which would apply to our spirits or our relational souls.
What this means is that God is speaking promise and good over us intended to enrich our souls and ours spirits with His goodness made available to us through Christ.
Depending on how you look at this it can change your perspective greatly. Some see the term in heavenly places and think that it pertains only to when we arrive home after this life.
But to me the proper way to look at this is that the spiritual blessings we get to enjoy are blessings that originate in and are common to heaven. This to me is referring to kingdom reality living.
God wants to invade our lives here and now with His kingdom breaking through into our realm granting us a taste of things to come as well as demonstrate to others the reality of His power at work in us because of Jesus.
We get to experience the joy of heaven breaking in on us despite our circumstances and we get to praise God because we know He is not bent on evil in our lives, He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms.
About The Author
- Tim Atchley
- Knoxville, Tennessee, United States
- I currently serve as Senior Pastor of Harvest Church in Knoxville, Tn. I was sent out from Trinity Chapel of Knoxville in 1993 accompanied by my wife Sheila our four children Sarah, Hannah, Josiah & Isaac and a handful of bold, brave and committed believers determined to plant our first church. Pioneering is hard work but well worth the journey. That is why we desire to make disciples of Christ who will, like us, also embrace the call to plant churches.
