Favored in the Beloved
Blessed Be God
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” (Ephesians 1:3)
Paul does not open with praise or worship as we usually mean it — he opens with blessing. The word is eulogeō: to speak good, to speak well of. God has blessed us — spoken good over us, acted for our good — and seeing what He has done, we speak good of Him back. It is reciprocal. We love Him because He first loved us. (1 John 4:19)
This is the same word Jesus uses when He tells us: “bless those who curse you” (Luke 6:28) — and Paul echoes it: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse” (Romans 12:14). Blessing, then, is not a casual “have a blessed day” tossed out as a sign-off, and it is not handed only from the greater to the lesser. It is God’s people speaking good — deliberately, even toward those who have wronged them. How much more do we speak good of God, who is altogether worthy, who blessed us first while we were still dead in our trespasses (Ephesians 2:5).
Chosen Before the Foundation of the World
He chose us in Christ before He created the world. Before the garden, before the flood, before the Law — there was a hidden purpose, a mystery kept in God: to have a people holy and blameless before Him in love. (Ephesians 1:4)
This is why the heavens and the earth were made. Not as an afterthought, not as a rescue plan, but as the setting for a family. The promise to Abraham — “in you all the nations of the earth shall be blessed” — was always pointing here: not to an earthly nation, but to a spiritual people, living stones built into a temple of God.
Predestined for Adoption
He predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 1:5) And adoption, Paul tells us, is through the Spirit — we receive a Spirit of adoption, and the Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. (Romans 8:15-16)
This is not written code, but God putting His Spirit within and writing on hearts and minds. It is a Father bringing sons and daughters into His house, with the Spirit inside us crying out that we belong. The child of God knows the Father, and knows his sins are forgiven. (1 John 2:12-13)
According to the Good Pleasure of His Will
Why did God do all of this? Paul will not let us miss it: “according to the good pleasure of His will … to the praise of the glory of His grace.” (Ephesians 1:5-6)
You can question whatever you want about what God is doing here, but He answers it Himself. It pleased Him. It was His will, His purpose, His grace. To the praise of His glory — and then, in the Greek, the grace by which He highly favored us in the Beloved.
Highly Favored in the Beloved
To favor is to visit with favor, to make someone the object of favor, to gift. By grace you have been saved through faith — it is the gift of God. (Ephesians 2:8) He favored us in the Beloved.
Think about what that means. God loves us. He values us. He esteems us. He delights in us. He shows generous concern toward us. This is not a cold legal standing — it is a Father’s heart toward His children.
charitoō, from charis, grace — the word carries the emphasis of God’s gracious action toward another. It describes favor freely given, never earned. That is exactly where Paul wants our eyes: not on the worthiness of believers, but on the generosity of God.
The Beloved
The Beloved is Jesus — the only begotten of the Father, the Son who has dwelt in the Father’s love before creation itself. In John 17, Jesus speaks of the love the Father had for Him before the foundation of the world, and He prays that we would experience that same love. (John 17:24, 26)
We are favored in the Beloved. We do not stand outside the household hoping for acceptance. We have been brought inside — into the very sphere of love that has always existed between the Father and the Son. The favor we receive flows from our union with Him.
Spiritual Blessings
We see the shadow of this in the Old Testament. In Ezekiel 16, God finds Israel like a newborn cast into the field — despised, unclean, left to die. He says, “Live.” He raises the child, adorns her like a queen, gives her beauty and wisdom — and she turns from Him to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of possessions. In Hosea, God tells the prophet to marry a harlot, to feel what He feels: a jealous, wounded love for a people who leave Him. Then he takes her back.
But here is what we must see: this was not a failed experiment. God already had the plan in Christ. All of it — the garden, the flood, the Law, the promised land — was pointing to the blessing in Christ. And it taught something about us we need to hear: earthly blessings did not keep their devotion. God gave Solomon wisdom and wealth beyond measure, and his heart turned. To Israel in the Exodus He parted the sea, and within a short time they were building a golden calf.
God puts His Spirit in us. He writes His laws on our hearts and minds. He is making us like His Son — not managing our behavior from the outside, but transforming us from within.
So now He blesses His people spiritually. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 1, that through signs and wonder and earthly wisdom men did not become devoted to God.
God Chooses the Weak
This is why Paul says God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and the weak things to shame the strong. (1 Corinthians 1:27) The Greeks seek wisdom; Israel sought signs. God chose a despised infant in a field. Jesus chose fishermen and a persecutor. The gospel itself looks like foolishness — but it is the power of God unto salvation. Or it is God who saves.
And he is still working this way. He is shaking His people now — not only at the end, when all things will be shaken, but today. Like a refiner’s fire (Malachi 3:2-3), He is burning away the dross — the worldliness, the mixture — so that He has a people who can stand in His presence. Peter says the proving of our faith is by fire and more precious than gold. (1 Peter 1:7). God is a consuming fire!
Do not mistake the shaking for abandonment. When affliction comes, the devil will use it to accuse and condemn, to drive you from God. But the fire is meant to bring you nearer — into deeper fellowship with His sufferings, into more of His life. Discipline is what a father gives the children he loves so they share in his character.
Faith That Sees the Unseen
Faith, in the Scripture’s own meaning, is being persuaded — fully convinced. Abraham was unfaithful when he tried to bring about the promise through another. But God did not judge him according to his unbelief, nor did Abraham, but was strengthened in faith until he was fully convinced that what God promised, He would bring to pass. (Romans 4:20-21)
That is what faith does: it sees from the heavenly, from the spiritual, not from the worldly. It calls into existence things that do not yet exist in this world, but what is unseen but through faith. And it is not wishful thinking — it is experiential. We are experiencing our salvation now: made alive, raised, seated with Christ in the heavenly places (Ephesians 2:5-6) — and we await its fullness.
But do not be deceived: the soul is still in a battle. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of possessions — these wage war against your soul. (1 Peter 2:11) You cannot serve two masters. You cannot love the world and love God. So we run the race. We purify ourselves, just as He is pure, because we have this hope in Him. (1 John 3:3)
Walking in the Spirit
We are no longer under the guardian of the Law. We are under the guardian of faith. Obedience, in the new covenant, is faith — anything done apart from faith is sin. (Romans 14:23) And the fulfillment of all God’s righteous requirements is this: love God, and love your neighbor. (Matthew 22:37-40) We can only do that by walking in the Spirit.
That is the mark of the true church — not legalism dressed up as holiness, but a people led by the Spirit, putting to death the deeds of the flesh, growing from children into sons. The sons of God are led by the Spirit of God. (Romans 8:14)
And favor has a shape like a marriage. Paul uses it in Romans 7: bound to Christ in this new covenant as a wife is bound to her husband — released from the old bond, joined to another, to live in the newness of the Spirit. To be highly favored in the Beloved is devotion: a wife’s devotion to her husband, a husband’s to his wife. Faith itself is said to be nothing without love. (1 Corinthians 13:2) Through such truth we get a glimpse at the Father’s heart, who desires children like him, who love him, and are devoted to him.
Nothing Can Separate Us
There is a surpassing love in Christ that carries us through the fiery trial. Paul prayed that we would know it — rooted and grounded in love, able to grasp the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that we might be filled to all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:17-19)
Hope does not disappoint. The world may shame you, accuse you, afflict you — but the hope we have does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. (Romans 5:5) Nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:38-39)
So do not draw back. Do not lose your boldness to approach the throne of grace. You are His child, highly favored in the Beloved.