Monday, April 19

Ephesians 1:1-3
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
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. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.

Can you remember the days when people actually wrote letters instead of email or Facebook messages? Can you remember ever saving a letter? I have a couple of boxes in my attic that are filled with letters I have saved for over 25 years. In almost every case I saved those letters because both the person who wrote the letter and the content of the letter was very special to me. So it is a letter we are studying in our current message series, “The Call of Hope: Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians.”

Ephesus was an ancient city not unlike modern day Chicago. A significant economic and cultural center of the great Roman Empire, Ephesus was filled with magnificent buildings, important people and diverse religious and philosophical world views.

As he writes this letter, Paul is in prison. But he wants to send both encouragement and spiritual instruction to the young Christians in Ephesus – to the church that he had personally planted and established several years before.

Notice in the opening words of his letter, Paul establishes both his own authority – “an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God” – and the identity of his readers – “the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus.”

Then he immediately reminds them of their status before God. They have been blessed with “every spiritual blessing in Christ” – for “he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.”

Think for just a moment about what it means to be “chosen by God.”
I told the story in last week’s message about the father who often said to his son at bedtime, “if I could line up all the little boys of the world and then choose one to be my son - I would choose you!” To be chosen is to belong to someone. To be chosen is to feel special to someone. To be chosen is to be loved by someone. Paul is reminding his dear friends in Ephesus – and he is reminding you – that you have also been chosen by God! God wants you to belong to him. He wants you to know you are loved by him. And he wants you to be special – “holy and blameless in his sight.”

With that as an introduction to this letter, it’s easy for me to see why the Ephesians saved this letter to read again and again! Take a few moments to read again those few verses – and ask God to help you grasp in a deeply personal way what it means to be blessed and chosen by him.

Brian Coffey