Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus, and faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 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, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,  to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He has made us accepted in the Beloved. (Eph 1:4-6 NKJ)

Isn’t good to know that God has already blessed us with every Spiritual blessing. What are those spiritual blessings? First, Paul tells us that we are adopted as sons (v. 5), and I would add to that daughters.

Look how the Message translation put it, “3-6 How blessed is God! And what a blessing he is! He’s the Father of our Master, Jesus Christ, and takes us to the high places of blessing in him. Long before he laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son.

We have been adopted into God’s family so that we can join in the celebration and the gift giving. Adoption grants non-physically related children all the privileges of a natural born child. We are not God’s children naturally. Our spiritual nature makes us enemies of God. But because of the forgiveness of God and the redemption he gives us through Christ, we become God’s adopted children, part of His family.

So don’t waste your life being like the elder son in the Prodigal story, feeling you have to work to earn favor and choosing a goat to celebrate with when the fatted calf or lamb is available.  Don’t waste your potential.