EphesiansSample

Welcome to day one of the Ephesians devotional! Today we're reading through the intro of Ephesians, and the apostle Paul wastes no time in diving into the deep end of the pool.

In verses 1-6, Paul introduces himself and tells us that God has adopted us through the work of Jesus into God’s family, and because of this adoption, we have been blessed with “every spiritual blessing.” This picture of adoption into the family of God is one of the key themes throughout the book of Ephesians, and it is one of the main portraits of what happens when we believe in Jesus and follow him.

Think about adoption in real life. A family goes through the process of adopting a baby into their family, and that baby receives a new last name, new parents, new family members, and access to love, care, and resources. This baby receives the blessings of the family that adopts them. The adopted child has a new identity, and it did nothing to earn that identity. They are moved from an orphan with no home and family to a fully loved member of the family. That is the picture of what happens to us through Jesus. Because of Jesus, we are now God’s sons and daughters with full access to everything that comes with that. Do you see yourself that way today? Do you live like the most core thing about you is that you are now God’s dearly loved child? Or do you live from another place of identity? We live in a moment in time where everything tells us to forge our own identity and to make central aspects of ourselves that are important but were never made to be the most important things about us. The problem with this is that when we make and earn our identity, we will always have to do things to maintain and keep it. God wants to give us an identity that cannot be taken from us and that we live from as a gift. Earned identities, in the end, will always oppress us, but given identity liberates us to be the people God has made us to be; His dearly loved sons and daughters.

Prayer Points

• Take time to thank God that you're his dearly loved child.
• Ask God if other things have come before your identity as his son or daughter.
• Ask God to help you truly believe that you are his child, and what it means for how you live in your daily life.