Daddy’s rich

Maybe your earthly father had short arms and deep pockets.  Or long arms and shallow pockets.  Or crossed arms and closed pockets. 

Your Father in heaven is different.

He's rich beyond your wildest imaginings.  6 times Pauls says it in Ephesians (1:7,18; 2:4,7; 3:8,16). 

He's rich - rich I tells ya.  And it's just the normal word for wealthy. Loaded. Rolling in it.  Stinking, filthy rich.  Like Abraham (Gen 13:2), like Solomon (1 Kings 3:13), like 'the rich man' (Mark 10:25).  Your Father is no pauper.

And neither is He a miser.  He lavishes His children with every treasure at His disposal.  First, He commits all things into the hands of His Son (John 3:35).  The nations are His inheritance (Ps 2:8).  The whole creation is a love gift for Him (Col 1:15-16).  But for the sake of His Son, and so that He might be the firstborn among many brothers (Rom 8:29), the Father brings us into His inheritance. We become objects of the Father's lavish philanthropy.

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved.  (Eph 2:4-5)

In Christ we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that He lavished on us  (Eph 1:7-8)

  And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus.  (Eph 2:6-7) 

But perhaps you don't feel able to appreciate this wealth.  Maybe you're not feeling the benefits of this incredible union with Christ?  Well God's riches aren't just for the bestowal of grace, they enable you to appreciate these blessings too:

I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith  (3:16-17)

You know what this means?  God even has riches that awaken us to the riches He's already bestowed!  Talk about grace upon grace.

And if we despair that we don't already possess these riches in their fullness, Paul has another prayer:

I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints (Eph 1:18)

What a day of sumptuous opulence and overwhelming prosperity when we are heirs of God, co-heirs of the cosmos with Christ and when God Himself inherits us His saints. 

What can we do in the meantime except...

...to preach to the nations the unsearchable riches of Christ (Eph 3:8)

Christ is the storehouse of the Father's overflowing bounty.  We beggars, who've gotten rich quick, tell the world where to find true wealth.

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Friends, rejoice.  Daddy's rich.

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