Counting Blessings
What it means to be blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places
Not every blessing is really a blessing. If you’re ever in Alabama and someone says to you, “Bless your heart,” it’s best not to respond immediately with, “Thank you.” “Bless your heart” has a wide range of meaning in the South. While it can certainly communicate blessing, it also provides southerners with a passive-aggressive way to sound nice when they’re really being rude. For example, the phrase might be used in response to a woman dressed inappropriately—“Bless her heart,” which means, “Doesn’t she look ridiculous?” Or imagine someone doing what I did in my 20s and letting their car run out of oil, thus locking up the engine—“Bless his heart” here means, “Isn’t he an idiot?”
Blessings aren’t always what they seem, which brings me to an important question: What does it mean to be blessed by God? How might we misunderstand God’s blessings? Thankfully, and in contrast to Southern culture, God’s blessings are always actual blessings. In fact, it’s impossible for us to fully comprehend the extent of God’s blessings toward his children. If we err, we err on the side of underestimating them.
For example, talk about “blessings” often triggers ideas about material blessings. We “count our blessings” by making a list of things we’re thankful for—house, car, bills paid, food on the table, health, etc. Those are certainly blessings from God, but we need to aim higher still. So maybe we go as high as we can. I’m blessed because I have assurance that I will spend eternity with Christ when I die. It’s hard to imagine a greater blessing beyond eternal destiny, bought and paid for by the blood of Christ. But again, I think we’re leaving something on the table.
In Ephesians 1:3, Paul praises God for blessing us “in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” He then rehearses the process of God choosing, adopting, and redeeming his people through Christ. Paul wants us to understand that God predestined our eternal blessedness “before the foundation of the world.” The church “in Christ” is not an afterthought. His love stretches back to eternity past and will go forth to eternity future.
But he also wants us to understand that God’s blessing has a goal—“that we should be holy and blameless before him” (1:4). As the rest of Ephesians will show, the church is central to God’s plan for the world. As N.T. Wright describes it, “God’s purpose was to create, in the middle of human history, a people who lived a different kind of human life, a life that would simultaneously put the world to shame and also be extremely attractive.”
God’s blessing is not limited to creational benefits and then going to heaven when you die. God’s blessing extends to the quality of your life in Christ now. He wants to renew everything about you, starting with your relationship to God’s covenant people, the church. But he doesn’t stop there. He intends to transform your heart, your speech, your marriage, your relationships, your work life. If you’re in Christ, he’s given you his Spirit—“the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it” (1:14)—so that you can live out the holy identity Christ has secured for you. God’s bringing about a new creation, and he gives his church a headstart on living it out.
On a couple of occasions in my life, I’ve gone to pay for a meal at a restaurant only to find out that someone in the restaurant had already paid for it. I usually repeat the same lame joke to whoever is with me, “Should’ve gotten a steak.” When I’m paying, I eat on a budget. I limit myself. However, if you tell me that my meal is already paid for and that I can order whatever I want, I might order some things I wouldn’t ordinarily eat. I might even get a coke.
I fear that some of us are living life on a poor grace budget when a better life has already been purchased for us. We go through life with low expectations—continually giving in to the same sins, content with unhappy marriages, not expecting things to improve. When we get low, we wonder why God isn’t blessing us. Why doesn’t he change our circumstances and make it all better. Why am I not blessed like other people who seem happier?
The truth, according to Paul, is that “in Christ” he has already blessed you. In Christ, the new life we long for has been purchased for us. The problem is that we’re not living in the victory he’s already won. Go ahead and order the steak and the coke. In this life, it’s all on him.