Day 1: Chosen Before You Were Born
Reading: Ephesians 1:1-4
1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,
To God’s holy people in Ephesus,[a] the faithful in Christ Jesus:
2 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Praise for Spiritual Blessings in Christ
3 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. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.
Footnotes
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Devotional:
Before the world was formed, God already knew your name. Paul's opening words to the Ephesians were not written to perfect people in a comfortable place. They were written to ordinary people surrounded by darkness, people God had chosen and set apart for himself. Your identity does not begin with your failures, your past, or what others have said about you. It begins with what God decided before time itself. He chose you. He called you holy not because you have earned it, but because he has declared it. Rest today in the truth that you were wanted before you were born.
1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,
To God’s holy people in Ephesus,[a] the faithful in Christ Jesus:
2 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Praise for Spiritual Blessings in Christ
3 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. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.
Footnotes
- Ephesians 1:1 Some early manuscripts do not have in Ephesus.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Devotional:
Before the world was formed, God already knew your name. Paul's opening words to the Ephesians were not written to perfect people in a comfortable place. They were written to ordinary people surrounded by darkness, people God had chosen and set apart for himself. Your identity does not begin with your failures, your past, or what others have said about you. It begins with what God decided before time itself. He chose you. He called you holy not because you have earned it, but because he has declared it. Rest today in the truth that you were wanted before you were born.
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5 Comments
I love the word “chosen” and “chose” that we see in verse 1 and then verse 4. It’s precious to be chosen by the God of the Universe who also sees all of our faults and flaws and mess. But He chose us anyway because He loves us and wants relationship with us. He chose us and then made us Holy. This makes me feel so loved.
I like how God didn’t choose special people to be his chosen ones. He chose ordinary broken ones and set them apart to be his own. That means that we don’t have to live up to a standard set up by people because we’re all imperfect. The only standard we have is God and he is the one doing the perfecting.
From Pastor Dave’s sermon, the word EVERY sticks out to me in verse 3. It makes me think about which blessings I don’t see that I already have. I bet he doesn’t give them all to us at once. Or maybe he does.(?) and we just don’t see them right away or something. But “every” is crazy to me because he’s God. I imagine the spiritual blessings are boundless. It makes me curious to think about heaven and also about my life and what I might be missing that is right in front of me, but is hidden to me because of sin. God is so good that we can’t even fathom the extent of his goodness. When sin exists no more, maybe only then will we understand fully. ❤️
The word “every” does make you think. I was just saying yesterday I felt peace that I hadn’t felt in a long time. And I count that as a blessing. There are things that God grants us if only we would look to Him. I’m also wondering today what blessings I take for granted and simply forget about.
What a beautiful reminder that our identity is not defined by how others see us or how we see ourselves, but is defined in how God sees us - HIS CHOSEN!