God Chose Us With An End In Mind: let's walk accordingly

God chose us "that we should be holy and blameless before Him" (Eph. 1:4).

God chose you in Christ to make you holy and blameless in His sight. To be "holy" is to be separated from sin and devoted to righteousness. To be "blameless" is to be pure without spot or blemish--like Jesus, the Lamb of God (1 Pet. 1:19).

Ephesians 1:4 is a positional statement. That is, Paul describes how God views us "in Christ." He sees us as holy and blameless because Christ our Savior is holy and blameless. His purity is credited to our spiritual bank account. That's because God made Christ "who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Cor. 5:21).

Despite our exalted position in God's sight, our practice often falls far short of His holy standard. Therefore the challenge of Christian living is to increasingly match our practice to our position, realizing that sinless perfection won't come until we are in heaven fully glorified (Rom. 8:23).


How do you meet that challenge? By prayer, Bible study, and yielding your life to the Spirit's control. Commit yourself to those priorities today as you seek to fulfill the great purpose to which you've been called: "good works, which God prepared beforehand, that you should walk in them" (Eph. 2:10).

~JM, Drawing Near

That's exactly what Paul says in Ephesians 1:

Eph 1:8  which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight 
Eph 1:9  He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him 
Eph 1:10  with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him 
Eph 1:11  also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, 
Eph 1:12  to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. 

God's will, plan, intention, and purpose never, ever fails. If He chose a person to be saved in order to glorify Himself in that way, He WILL do it. And, by the way, when He chooses instead to send a person to Hell for their just and righteous punishment, that too, glorifies Himself, as even Hell testifies to the absolute holiness and righteousness, justice and wrath of the thrice Holy God of Heaven.