To the church in Ephesus, Apostle Paul said, ‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ’ (Ephesians 1:3), wherein the term ‘blessed’ refers to a blessing that occurred in the past and has been completed. Christians are therefore not seeking the blessing; this has already been given and there is nothing left for God to do. God is outside of time, he is Alpha-Omega, the beginning and the end, He is not attempting to do anything – all has been fully completed. Therefore, the Christian life is not a journey of pursuit, but rather, a journey of discovery – we merely discover what has been done for us. When the Apostle clarified that these are ‘spiritual blessings’, he was emphasizing the point that these blessings dwell in the spiritual realm, and because we know that all things are born from the spirit, we have the full potential to make these blessings manifest in this realm as well. The Apostle continues, ‘… just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will…’ (v. 4-5). Here we see that we were specifically chosen by God before we even came to be, our existence is not a matter of chance or of fleshly desire – our lives were elected by God! The Apostle makes it clear that we have received this blessing, using terms like ‘obtained, predestined, sealed’, all to emphasize the completeness of God’s blessing in our life. This is independent of circumstances, we are blessed church – we are the premium crop of this earth, we carry the best of all- the blessing of God!
Now, the question that often arises then, is how we make these blessings manifest in this time so as to live out God’s blessing experientially. Apostle Peter addresses this exact issue, beginning by explicitly acknowledging that we believers have received the exact same faith that they did – saying, ‘… to those who have obtained like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ…’ (2 Peter 1:1). There is therefore no special faith reserved for a select few, all of us have access to the exact same serving, but he clarifies where the difference comes to play: ‘Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord…’ (v.2). The apostle does not ask for God to multiple grace and peace to anyone, he instead alludes that this multiplication is a function of the direct knowledge of God – this is how we increase our experience of the grace and peace available in Christ Jesus. He again reiterates, ‘… as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, THROUGH THE KNOWLEDGE of Him who called us by glory and virtue by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the [c]corruption that is in the world through lust. ’ (v.3-4). You can only partake of that which you know of, there is no osmosis! This is the mystery of light! So, there it is church, there is no special faith, we all have the same faith – but we ought to exercise our faith in the knowledge we continue to gather. The gospel has an exact formula, nothing is sporadic and without sequence; if we are to look into things carefully, we would work out the sequence of events that were stimulated by light!
The apostle continues, ‘But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love’ (v.5-7). Peter shows the gears to exercise through the waiting of manifestation; being diligent, waiting in full understanding and not in hopelessness, changelessness and discipline – being able to do the same thing over a long period of time, godliness – living a holy and pure life, and brotherly affection – love and fellowship for and with the brethren! These are the elements that ought to be in play during the waiting season and these govern our manifestation. The apostle continued to emphasise, ‘… for if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is short-sighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins’ (v. 8-9). Believers today are so self-centred, they want to experience the blessing of God alone, so people may see and applaud them, but that is not God’s idea. When Israel left Egypt, all of them left with heaps of gold and treasure, none of them lacked anything! There was no classism and no one was better off – the blessing of God was well distributed. This is possible in God’s kingdom. Therefore, we ought to adopt an impact mindset, wherein we use our resources to better benefit the next person. When someone is in need of an opportunity or puts forth a prayer request, we ought to take these things seriously. This is how we wait in expectation!
Prayer
Father, we thank You for Your abounding blessings! It is this very blessing that produces wealth, peace, joy, grace, fruitfulness, and favour amongst us! We pray Lord, that You may quicken us in Your word and in understanding, that we may be produce the expected fruit from the seed of the Word planted within us! We praise You! In Jesus’ name. Amen.
