praise God
who blesses us
in Christ
with every spiritual blessing available in Heaven
from the very beginning the Father decided that humanity
would be included in Christ
as an expression of the Christ
His own
pure before His face
His love
He accomplished this intention through His predisposition of
adoption into His family as children
and this gave Him very much pleasure
and the sheer graciousness of this giving through His Beloved
speaks powerfully to the praise of His glory
it is through Christ that our release is secured
and our fallings forgiven
through His abundant grace poured out in the human blood of him
God has let us know of this mystery
concerning His delightful desire for us -
that it would be through Christ that His intention for us
would be fulfilled in the fulness of time
that everything in the created universe
would be consolidated in Christ
in whom we also have been made a heritage
his inheritance
predisposed in accord with the unravelling of God's intention
.. .
that is a restatement of the opening verses of Paul's writing to the Ephesian church
Christ is the instrumentality and the instantiation of our spiritual flourishing
it is because of Christ, and through Christ, that we are able to thrive in this fallen world system, which falls under the influence of the Archon of the ethereal authority (2:2), to be overcomers (Romans 8:37)
all that we are is by Christ - our very existence and the original environment we occupy are all a product of the Expression/Word of God, the Christ, who brought it all into being .. and beautifully done too ..
this Expression of God as Son - Son of God, Son of Human - is the Person of the Godhead tasked with the Human Expression, the loving sharing of Godself with a being designed to be like God - as they imaged God, being images of God - and who, in Person, expressed the likeness of God in the human form
it is to this One we owe everything, not only our existence (in his image to boot), but also our continued existence, even after our breach of trust, the denial of our Creator
he takes upon himself Redemption, the Rescue from the wicked and perverse powers that wage war against humanity and it's God (6:12) ..
further, this one is our Hope, for in him we witness the fulfillment of the original intent of Creator God for the created human
the Christ has gone before us, as us, having participated in the depths of us, and arrived in eternity as the matured, complete, full human expression of the GodImage .. so that when we look at Christ Jesus we see us in wholeness, fully formed, accomplished according to the blueprint of God in creation - that blueprint is the GodWord, Creator himself
this was God's intent all along – that we be consummated in the Christ ..
the Christ is our imaged intention, our divine pattern, the human standard, and the measure according to which our humanity is fulfilled (4:13) ..
humanity perfected
everything that i am and strive for is wrapped in the person of Jesus, and as the Christ, he has included me .. me
how do i unfold that ?
how is there a place for me in the space inhabited by Christ ?
does God not care who i am ?
does God not know who i am ?
surely ..
and so i am left with what exactly ?
i am left with the virtually unbelievable thought that God does indeed love me
and has accorded me standing through Christ
and not just standing, but affiliation as child
as if i was His own flesh and blood ..
..
that, my friend, is a God i can serve wholeheartedly
