It may be hard for us to realize that God does delight in us. He especially delights in our salvation. This daily devotional looks at God’s good will for us and how the praise returns to Him.
Nuggets
- God takes pleasure in the people who humbly surrender their lives to Him.
- God wants us to accept His gift of salvation so that it brings Him glory.
I am doing something I haven’t done in a while. I am taking a devotion from the drafts folder.
We are taking a break from the Finding Our Center series on the attributes of God. We won’t start the Easter series until the last week of March/first week of April. I have something else to do next week, but it needs a little more organization.
So, to the trusty drafts folder I went.
I know. If you have been reading my devotions for the past year and a half, you probably thought I have hit every verse in Ephesians when we went through it for the Sunday Morning Bible Study series.
Naw, there were a lot of verses in Chapter 1 that I didn’t hit then. Some I have picked up later.
Not these two. Well, actually, one and a half.
This really spoke to me this morning when I was trying to figure out what I was going to write. How much does God delight in our salvation?
Let's Put It into Context
“He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will” (Eph. 1: 5 CSB)
We’ve looked at the beginning part of this verse before through several ways. We looked at predestination and adoption.
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Bible scholars also get the topic of election out of this verse.
Devotions in The Purpose of Grace category
We’ve also talked before how God delights in us.
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For this devotion, I want to pull out how much pleasure God gets in our salvation.
God’s Good Will for Us
“… for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will” (Eph. 1: 5 CSB)
God takes pleasure in the people who humbly surrender their lives to Him.
When I looked up the sermons for Ephesians 1: 5, I didn’t find any for this section of the verse. However, there were other ones showing God’s delight in our salvation — and displeasure when we remain in our sin.
“For the Lord takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with salvation” (Ps. 149: 4 ESV)
It is easy to think that we can take pleasure in God because He has saved us from our sins. We may scratch our heads more when we think about Him taking pleasure in us.
Tuck felt the fact that we are God’s redeemed children gives Him pleasure. We not only are made in His image, but Burns reminded us that we bear His name. I think He gets the most pleasure when we rely on Him as Sovereign, Omniscient God.
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Glossary
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We become God’s people and His children through accepting His gift of salvation.
- Salvation is deliverance from evil and the consequences of sins to replace them with good and eternal life.
- The consequences of sin are spiritual death and physical separation from God.
- Spiritual death is the spiritual separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin. The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God.
- Eternal life is the promise of living eternally – even if we have died in this life – because we have admitted our sins, believed Jesus as Savior and Redeemer, and confessed God as Sovereign Lord.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Using the Sanctification Road to become more like God brings Him even more pleasure. We become
- Meek. Meekness is a personality trait exhibiting a mild or moderate disposition that places dependence on God.
- Humble. Humility is a character trait that diminishes pride and places dependence on God while holding a modest view of our importance with respect to others.
Temple described it as “a humble, contrite spirit, softened by the power of Divine grace, and melted by the love and compassion of Christ.”
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Cooper suggested that we cultivate poverty of the spirit. Poverty of spirit is being aware of the fact that we are nothing without God and can do nothing to save ourselves. It has the components of humility, contentment, submission, gratitude, patience, and trust and hope in God.
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Poverty of spirit leads to a sense of knowing we still sin. Instead of giving into these desires, we surrender them to God.
Being God’s children means we are saints. Saint means holy one who has been set apart.
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God has plans to use us in the service of His kingdom. Those plans bring God pleasure because He knows that, when we have accomplished all He has for us, He will call us home to be with Him.
Whoa! Tuck said something that I hadn’t thought of from this perspective. This is going to be Elaine-speak.
What God does in us and for us on the Sanctification Road beautifies us for God. It beautifies us on the inside and outside.
Glossary
God uses trials on our Sanctification Road to change our character and strengthen our relationships with Him. If our navigating the Sanctification Road beautifies us in His eyes, that makes the trials we face our spa days.
Man, if we could only consider our trials spa days when we are going through them!
Just as it isn’t anything we do to gain salvation, it isn’t anything we do to delight Him. Cooper wrote that God takes pleasure in His people because “… they are His people, purchased by His blood, renewed by His Spirit, [and] redeemed by His power.”
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Bottom line is God wants us to ABCD so that we can be returned to His fold and He can delight in us.
The Praise Goes to God
“to the praise of his glorious grace that he lavished on us in the Beloved One” (Eph. 1: 6 CSB)
God wants us to accept His gift of salvation so that it brings Him glory.
When we think about all of verse 5 — predestination, election, adoption — it can be a little mind boggling when we think verse 6 is all about acceptance.
Bayne stated that God always has to work from a plan. Being wisdom, He has to have a purpose.
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Spurgeon reminded us that this includes the Plan of Salvation. He wrote, “The work of salvation from first to last, as a whole, was devised and carried out, and shall be perfected to the praise of the glory of the grace of God.”
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But God offers us salvation for a larger purpose than getting our relationships with Him restored. Our acceptance brings Him glory.
God’s merciful grace should elicit praise. We should praise God for this omnipotent grace because it is free. All we must do is genuinely accept His Lordship over us.
The Essex Remembrancer described grace this way. It said, “Grace gives away all it has, reserving nothing for itself but the praise and glory of its acts. Jesus is grace personified; in Him it may be seen in all its beauty, excellence, and loveliness; by Him it is displayed in all its native dignity.”
Grace Because of Jesus
We know of God’s love for Jesus. “And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased’” (Mt. 3: 17 ESV). God said basically the same thing on the Mount of Transfiguration (Mt. 17: 5).
It is Jesus that is acceptable, not us. Spurgeon said it this way: “Mark, it is not said that we are ‘acceptable,’ though that were a very great thing, but we are actually accepted; it has become not a thing possible that God might accept us, but He has accepted us in Christ.”
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Oh, won’t that cut our arrogance down to size and put us in our places!
Think about it. We were made in God’s image. We had all of His attributes.
Glossary
Then Satan said bite; Eve bit, and Adam bit. God rejected us. That means we are not only made in God’s image, but we are also made in Adam’s image.
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We are no longer acceptable to God; but when we ABCD, He will accept us because Jesus’ blood has paid the penalty for our sins. Once we get to Heaven and get our new bodies, we will be acceptable again because sin will have been vanquished and eliminated.
Let me put blinking lights around that. We will be acceptable again only when Jesus’ blood atones us. We can not do it on our own.
God decreed that He would forgive us of our sins when a sacrifice was made. Jesus was the only One who was perfect and could make the sacrifice. He became the Sacrifice.
Glossary
But we have to accept the gift of God’s grace. He gives us free will to make our own decisions. We have to accept.
Making the Connections
We talked about the trials being our spa days because the process is moving us down the Sanctification Road. It is moving us from regenerated to righteous.
Glossary
That is what our Redo for Godliness theme is about this year. We want to be godly and righteous like God is.
Then we will truly be beautiful — inside and out.
How Do We Apply This?
Our spa days are changing our character to be like His. Spottswood said it was making us to be gentle, sweet, and kind.
Spottswood reminded use, though, that we aren’t all given the same level. He wrote, “Religion is not equally beautiful in all who profess to have it; a disagreeable temper may mar that beauty.”
Resource
We want to reflect God’s beauty, not the world’s, not Satan’s.
We have to realize that the beauty is going to be influenced by our understanding of God. Because we want to be as beautiful as we can, we need to seek God to be sure we are imitating Him.
Searching for and Seeking God
Hearing His Word (Rom. 10: 17).
Reading His Word (Rev. 1: 3).
Praying to Him (Heb. 4: 16).
Studying His Word (Ac. 17: 11).
Meditating on His Word (Ps. 1: 1-2).
Memorizing His Word (Ps. 119: 11).
God wants us to return to a relationship with Him. He want to bless us and have us praise Him.
Father God. We humbly come to You, committing our lives to You. May our obedience delight You. Amen.
What do you think?
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