August 21 2025

Thursday August 21

We Are Accepted in the Beloved

Ephesians 1:3-6

3 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, 4 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, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He has made us accepted in the Beloved.

In Ephesians 1:3-6 we are finding out how, as believers, we have received great spiritual blessings from God the Father through our Lord Jesus Christ. Indeed, my friend, we are rich in Christ. And we have everything we need for holy and godly living because of our position in Jesus Christ (2 Peter 1:2-4). And that's what these verses are about. We've talked about how we were “chosen in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blame before Him in love”. We also have been “adopted as sons by Jesus Christ”. We have a right standing before God. We are the children of God. We are in the family. John 1:12 tells us, "But as many as receive Him, to them He gives the authority, the power to become the children of God."

In Ephesians 2:1-3 teaches before salvation that we are “children of wrath”. We're literally, as Jesus told the Pharisees, “You are children of the devil. Your father is the devil. The lust of your father, you will do” (John 8:44). We were under the control of the evil one.

The third great blessing we learn from verse 6, is that we are “accepted in the Beloved”. The first time the word “accepted” was used is in Genesis 4:7, where God accepted Abel's sacrifice, but He rejected Cain's sacrifice. Cain was very angry and God told him: Genesis 4:7 “If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it."  God was saying that if Cain would do the right thing by bringing the right sacrifice that God could accept that he would be accepted, otherwise sin would control him when he could have “ruled” or conquered it by the acceptable sacrifice.

We have been “chosen” and we have been “adopted”. And we also been “accepted in the Beloved to the praise of the glory of His grace”. One of the worst emotions to have in our life is the feeling that we are being rejected. We might feel rejected by our parents. Sometimes we get rejected or feel rejected by our peers, by our friends, and rejected by our co-workers. There's this terrible sense that you have when you walk into the room, people don't want you in there. You're not wanted. You're not a part of the group.

I've heard that young people will do anything to be accepted by their peers. They'll change their looks. They'll change the color of their hair. They'll do everything to look like those who accept them. My friend, oh my friend, you and I have the great spiritual blessing of being accepted by God. Before we became a believer we were alienated from God. We were enemies from God. We were at war with God. But Jesus Christ came, and He took the rejection of men. He was despised and rejected of men. He was a man of sorrows (Isaiah 53:3).

Jesus took our sin. He took our place. He is the sin offering that God accepted. The only offering for sin that God could accept. He was the perfect sacrifice, the Lamb of God, the One without spot and without blemish. He was stainless. He was perfect before God. He was the only sacrifice that would satisfy the wrath of God. God had to turn His back to His Son when He was on the cross and in a sense reject His Son, as His Son, so that His Son could become our sin on that cross and die in our place.

Now because Jesus paid the full price. The offering for sin has been accepted. When you read about the sacrifices and offering in the Old Testament you can’t help but notice how many times it says that God could not accept certain sacrifices or offering because they didn’t meet His standard. But thank God, now the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ has been accepted.

“To the praise of the glory of His grace…” It is all by the grace of God and not what we do. It's not by our works of righteousness. There's nothing we could do. If we could bring peace to the whole world and settle all the wars and conflicts and by doing so got the Nobel Peace Prize, that will not give you one merit to enter heaven one day. It is only by the grace of God through the blood of Jesus Christ and the fact that God has accepted His sacrifice.

Now, you and I are accepted in the beloved. And my friend, if you know you're accepted by God, what does it matter if men reject you, if friends or anyone else rejects you? You know that your greatest need is to be accepted by God, and you are accepted in His Beloved Son Jesus Christ. How should we respond to this great fact and truth? We should live acceptable lives before Him as we read in Romans 12:1-2. We make acceptable offerings by giving ourselves wholly and completely to Him and please Him because we have been accepted.

Don't ever forget that you're accepted by God. You're accepted in His family. You're one of His children. What a great, awesome, and wonderful spiritual blessing!

God bless!