Ephesians 1:4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.

This verse starts the series of the Great IAM in us. There is so much in this verse it will be continued next week. Notice the verse says in him, that’ is the premise of the series. It is also the question of the series that we must reflect on, are you in him? Even before you ask that you may be wondering just what does that mean to be in him? Heck, some of you who have stumbled across this out of curiosity may even be asking who is him because you did not see last weeks message on the who this series is alluding to. Without knowing this the whole context is lost.

Who is the -him?

Again since context is king in way of gaining the proper understanding to scripture & using it for its intended purposes we have to ask this question. When preachers use script without proper context is robs us of the intended purpose & meaning.

Ephesians 1:3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

Paul praises God the Father of Jesus Christ for the blessings in the heavenly realms which means they are blessings in the spiritual realm not the material realm. These blessings, as stated spiritual in nature are in Christ. That is the context, the him is Christ. The Christ as stated is also a Lord, that Lord is Jesus. This Jesus. The same Jesus who is the Word of God who is God, who is with God since the beginning.

The same Jesus who operates outside space & time, who existed before time. The same Jesus that created everything that has been created & nothing was created without him. Every material, every cell, every molecule belongs to him. It all belongs to him, it all derives from him. The necessities we are built to have he put into creation to sustain us, but we were never to be confused enough to give them placement over his value. He is to be the top priority of your life.

The blessing you seek are heavily blessings because what is born in the spiritual is manifest in the material. It happens in the spiritual realm first. While we live in a material world that operates by seed time & harvest, the harvest being the blessing, you have to take into account that the blessing of the harvest emerges from the fire, oppression & pressure applied to the seed. That seed had to die to itself in order for the blessing to have any chance of reaching fulfillment emerging as a the blessing of the said harvest. To get that you must be in Christ.

What is it to be in him?

This is the meat of the gist of the series, because without this understanding we will not be able to consume & digest the other 25 pieces of the series. Him is a pronoun & the GR does not render it any different than if I was speaking of my brother, which is why the preceding verse was so very important for context as it as you heard even says in Christ for the sake of context. First notice it is in him, not in the rituals of the church, not in the behavior of the individuals it encompasses, not in the morals we possess, not in any of the evidences of the changes in your life of being under the leading of Holy Spirit that provokes you to operate in humility & for the purposes of Christ.

The GR is not a benefit here because it is generic is my point, so being in Christ means you have to a pat of him, he has to know you, he has to acknowledge you but you do not get this by simply claiming it. Remember we are tied to him because of his blood. You recognize & accept the cross, the flogging, the death of your Lord & his resurrection, because if you keep a broken, bloodied, beat up, dead lamb that has not been resurrected then he did not finish the job.

The blood is what you are in, you are in his veins, in his thoughts, in his ears when you pray. The Father views you as emerged from this blood, because when he views you he views his son. He loves his son so much that he sent him to represent the world to bring in the children of God, a term used 50x in different forms.

Notice the tense of the verb, it is a past tense selection, he chose you. Here is where many spin off into the chasm of what is known as Calvinism where that theology says God only saves those he wants, and some were made to be saved and others are born to be sent to hell, to which I say you have to disqualify a great deal of scripture to make that work & it disqualifies His foreknowledge of who will come to him through his son & who will not. It is a lie from the pits of hell, because if it is true Jesus would not have had to go to the cross.

He chose all of us but few respond to that selection, we put so much in front of him, our happiness, our circumstances, our careers, our relationships, our comfort, even the government. If you are in him he knows you by name, he knows your circumstances & more importantly he knows your heart. When did he choose you?

Before the creation of the world

Speaks of his foreknowledge, he knew that we would need Christ & sent Christ as the Savior out of love (John 3:16). This is our hope! Live like it!

Think like it! Walk in it! Have hope in it!