Matins Devotion: September 3, 2024

Ephesians 3

Before King David sat upon his throne, your God was planning to take you in His arms as He sat upon His throne. Before He fed the Israelites with manna in the wilderness, God was planning to feed you with His salvation. Before the preincarnate Son of God wrestled with Jacob, that same Son planned to crush the serpent and pull you out of his jaws. Before God called Abraham to be his own, God planned to make you his own. Before establishing His people, before there were Jews and gentiles, there was God’s love for you. From the foundation of the world, God was always going to make you His own.

And so to bring about this plan, God set His people apart. He set apart the children of Abraham. He gave His promises to them, spoke through the prophets He raised up from them. He raised up kings from among them, kings whose acts of righteousness would point to the righteousness of Christ, and kings whose sins would point to Christ’s victory over sin. He gave them laws to set them apart, to mark them as different from the rest of the world, as holy. But this wasn’t because He loved His people and not you. It was because He wanted to show His love for the lowliest, for the outsiders, for the orphans. He wanted to show the fatherless that they now had the creator of the heavens and the earth as their Father. That’s what He wanted to show you.

So through the eternal purpose that He has now realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, your Father has claimed you. Through the blood Jesus poured out upon the cross, He forgave you. Through the living feet of our Lord that walked through His tomb of stone, God has given you the right to live with Him in His kingdom forever. He’s given you the right to take your seat at the feast of salvation beside David and Jacob, Abraham and Adam. The Lord’s plan of salvation is complete. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, through the eternal victory of God’s only begotten Son, you are His forever.