January 8^th 2014:

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.” –Ephesians 1:3-4

As the hordes of school children come through our doors this morning for their weekly chapel time it makes me think about how weird I really am. I find myself on long car drives, passing cars with complete strangers in them, wondering what is going on in that person’s life. Where are they going? What is their agenda for the next week? Who are they? I noticed myself doing the same thing this morning with our school children. Who are they? What is happening in their life? Is this relevant to my thought this morning? Well sort of. If you think about each individual person that you come in contact with on a daily basis and wonder what is going on in their lives you are going to overwhelm yourself to the point of exhaustion. Think about it this way. Think about what you have going on in your life, and then multiply that by at least 100 people. That is a lot of stuff to try and keep track of right? And you wonder why people get the perspective of God that He is not a personal and intimate kind of God.

            Thankfully there is evidence for us to prove that God is investing and wondering (well wondering if you will tell Him) what is going on in your life. Paul tells us in Ephesians that He has “blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing” and “chose us in him before the foundation of the world”. Our God was and is intentional about every little detail of your life. He knew what gifts and talents you were going to have before you were even a blip on the radar of your parents. He knows your past, your present, and your future, and most importantly He knows that you are forgiven and redeemed because of the life of Jesus Christ. I’m sure glad that God views me as a valuable enough to live and die for!

What can you do to invest a little more in other people?

How can you use your gifts and talents to show others that God values them?

“God does not love us because we are valuable. We are valuable because God loves us.” 

       –Fulton J. Sheen