Ephesians 1: Lavished with grace

Eph 1:7-8 – We have redemption "in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding." We probably need a sufficiently terrible view of our own depravity before we really understand just how richly we are blessed. (For that, I suggest reading Romans. Or the newspaper.)

God did not just toss us a bone; He has lavished His goodness on us, redeeming us from our sins and adopting us into His family. A child who's been given a wonderful present has every reason to feel grateful, but the child who's been literally buried in presents had darn well better realize and respond to just how much he's been given. Our problem is that we've both been buried under presents repeatedly and been told (by various parties in various ways) that we deserved the gifts. We've had the audacity to grow used the story of how we were raised up out of the mud and made rich.

Even so, we mustn't say that God didn't know what would happen. He lavished His grace "with all wisdom and understanding" – He knew exactly what He was doing and thought it worthwhile (which makes His love that much harder to understand).

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