Ephesians 1:3–14, Preview
As I type this, I’m sitting on the sofa in my living room. It’s 11:30am Friday morning. Why am I not sitting in my office? Normally I would be. I’m at home because this morning we woke up to the feeling of cold air inside our house.
Nothing was wrong. Last night when we went to bed around 11pm, we suspected the house would be cold in the morning. The reason is that the inside temp was already down to 65 degrees when we turned in for the night. Not that we wanted it to be 65.
Again, nothing was wrong. We let the temps drop simply because we didn’t tend to the wood stove. Wood is our main heat source, which means that during the cold winter months, we must think about and plan to keep the home fires burning, literally. Last evening, we just got a bit lax.
Then the cold winds kicked up. Because we live next to open fields, the west-facing side of our home often gets pounded with strong winds, and we really have to pay attention to the wood stove.
When we went to bed, even though the wood stove was stuffed full and burning hot, we were starting at 65, and knew that by morning the house would be cold again. It was 57 degrees inside when we awoke.
That meant I was going to be working from home this morning, keeping the fire raging to get our house temp up to something comfortable. That reality has me feeling grateful for many reasons: 1. I can work from home, mostly because I’m working on my sermon today; 2. We have a wood stove; 3. We have firewood. Finally, 4. In just a few hours time, the house temp is now at 70 degrees and rising. As I sit here on my sofa next to the wood stove, I feel the heat radiating my way, and I am thankful to God.
I mention this story because in Ephesians 1:3–14, Paul starts by saying, “Praise be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us…” I feel blessed when I feel the heat from my wood stove. How do you feel blessed today? How did the Apostle Paul feel blessed? In our second week in the series through his letter “Ephesians” Paul has a long list of blessings, a list that has him saying, “Praise be!”
I look forward to this coming week, as we’ll study this passage together. It will be a joyful expression of God’s blessings that he has shared with us.
Engaging Scripture 