Yes, but how? part 2

Ephesians 1:3ffWe saw twenty applications from verses 3 and 4. Moving on to verses 5 and following, I thought I could share fifteen more ways these verses should impact you.1. “In love”When you wonder about God’s attitude towards you, you can look back before the beginning of the world and see Him loving you.2. “He predestined us to adoption”If you had to be adopted, if God had to legally bring you into His family, that you means you weren’t always in God’s family, and if you weren’t always God’s child and in God’s family, that means you don’t really deserve anything from God which should make you incredibly humble and grateful for the love and blessings you have been given.3. “As sons”When you begin to feel alone, you should remember that feeling is a lie because God has made you part of His family.4. “through Jesus Christ”All the blessings that you are experiencing because of your adoption are the result of the work of Jesus Christ on your behalf.5. When you consider the shocking nature of your adoption, the cost, the fact you were God’s enemy before, that you didn’t even want to be adopted, that God already had a perfect heir, that there was nothing you could give God, that should cause you to become a person who demonstrates surprising mercy as well.6. “according to the purpose of His will”Your adoption is secure because your adoption did not begin with you. The passage does not say you were adopted through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of your will, but instead according to the purpose of God’s will. That’s good news. If God is the one who started this, He will see this adoption all the way through!7. “to the praise of His glorious grace”If God adopted you into His family for the purpose of praising and adoring how amazingly kind He is, it makes sense that you should spend the rest of your life doing just that.8. “with which He has blessed us in the Beloved…”If God the Father dearly loved Jesus like this and yet was willing to sacrifice His best for you, then no sacrifice you could ever make for Him could be too great.9. “In Him”If God sees you as inextricably connected to Jesus, you should see yourself that way as well.10. “we have redemption”The fact that you had to be set free from something should impact the way you think about your life before you became a Christian.11. “Redemption through his blood”A price had to be paid to set you free. To say it another way, blood was spilt to enable you to be set free from sin. To say it still another way, you should really think of your sin as something terrible because someone had to die so that you could be released from it.12. “Redemption”When you look at your life now you should view yourself as being free from sin, meaning able not to sin, released from the power and penalty of sin.13. “Redemption”If someone died to set you free, you should take freedom seriously. If someone as valuable and important and wonderful as Jesus died to take you free, you better not take your freedom from sin lightly.14. “the forgiveness of our trespasses”If you are a believer you have committed very real sins against God and at the same time you are someone who is forgiven. When you are tempted to become proud, remember that your need for forgiveness and when you are tempted to become discouraged, remember that you are forgiven.15. “according to the riches of His grace which He lavished upon us…”You need to see God as rich in grace. Imagine Him as someone who has treasure chests full of kindness that He is looking to happily lavish on His children. The fact that you are forgiven of all your sins proves it. It would be crazy to think of God as stingy with His kindness given the fact that He has already been so generous with it.