These spiritual blessings that God gives His people can be summed up in one phrase that appears over and over in this passage: in him! Our position is not based on what we do but on what Christ accomplished on our behalf. In him!

Let me ask you a question: how much does Christ affect your Christianity? Even though the root word of Christianity is “Christ,” more and more we have to ask ourselves if Christianity is really about Christ or if it’s tethered to other matters in our lives. When you come to these times together, read the Word, pray, serve, give, go—and all of the other aspects of practicing our Christian walk, we do so because we are in Him! (A helpful exercise is to go through this passage when you go home and underline every instance of “in him” or “in Christ.”)

God outlines five blessings in this passage. This passage is a prayer of praise that begins with the phrase, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ….” Paul puts this paragraph in prayer mode. Ligon Duncan reminds us that almost half of the book of Ephesians is prayer. We cannot understand the church’s position or practices without a supernatural understanding that comes through prayer