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 would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.

Ephesians 1:3-6

Much ado has been made about the predestination of believers, resulting in not much practical application for the exercise of the faith. I have no interest in adding to the noise around this topic, but rather would like to grab onto that practicality.

The result of our predestination, Paul says, is that we praise the glory of God’s grace which he freely bestowed on us. This predestination and the gift of grace both come to us through Jesus Christ, the Beloved.

In order to practice this planned salvation that God set forth for us, we must act in a way that brings about praise to God. It is not our righteousness and the ordination of our own flawlessness that is beyond our control, but the praise that is an inevitable outcome; when even a sinner like me can be saved, praise is a foregone conclusion.

Ethan Kirl