There's more to life than kale, eat the dessert.

I remember an old episode of King of the Hill where Hank and family go to Japan (or Korea?) and, because they assume every Asian person lives in a small, cramped house, when they get to their hotel, they spend their entire vacation time living in a very small lobby/sitting room and never opened the door to their lavish, well appointed hotel. They only find out about it when their ride comes to pick them up to go home and the driver opens the door and they see what they missed out on.

Sometimes, looking back, I feel that kind of dynamic was a formative part of my religious experience. It was the way my tribe handled truth and what was/is important.  

My tribe had/have a very focused idea of what's important and nothing else was worth mentioning or looking into because it might distract you from "the truth".  

"Stay in this room - this is all there is."

We'd normally skip over "the feel good" parts of the Bible and go straight to the hard truths about life and church services so that we'd be sure to be right with God.  

I/we missed out on SO MUCH because Paul, a guy who wrote most of the New Testament, put some of the best parts of God for us upfront in his letters and we'd just skip over that.

The best part upfront?  Yep.  In some of Paul's writings, he would say the best stuff at the beginning of his letters. Again, of course, in my tribal experience, those things weren't considered important.  

What was important was the list of "do's and don'ts" for moral behaviors and gathering together other texts to "prove" that how we "did church" was the right way since we could pick out enough scriptures to show it's what they did in the first century.  We were way off usually, but that didn't stop us (and still doesn't).

So what do you miss out on when you skip the first part?  Like, the places where Paul talks about what God did for us, how he saved us, and who we are in him - you know, theology, ecclesiology, soteriology, and other $20 words.  Well, we miss out a lot.  Scan through these initial verses in Ephesians and see...

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. 

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

In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us. 

With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.

What an amazing passage!  And that's just *some of* it.  Here are things from it I didn't get from my tribal background.  

• We are blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ.  He's not holding anything back from us, at all.  We are already all the things he says about us - all the good things are already done, all the good is already accounted for in our column.

• We are currently holy and blameless in his sight. He did this.

• And he gave us these good things where he exists.  Not only do we have things here already, but we have things "waiting for us" with our name on it.  He's already planning on us being there after this life.  The reservations are already made.  He's expecting you with joy.

• He chose us ahead of time.  None of this "sadly, Jesus died on the cross for us" business needs to continue on where we sulk around feeling sorry.  Jesus' death and resurrection was NOT an accident or surprise to God.  He planned for this so that HE would make us holy and blameless.  He planned all this.

• We're adopted into his family!  Adopted!  Now, that may mean something negative to people these days, but "back then" it meant that you were really wanted and that the person adopting you gave you their name, took on and paid all your debts, and could never abandon and/or leave you without.  It wasn't a thing where "if it doesn't work out, social services will be back and pick them up".  He has taken us in.

• We have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.  We already have that.  It's not dispensed on us "as needed", it's our very being.  As mentioned before, Jesus is not like a Pez dispenser, only passing out forgiveness when we pull on the lever.  Paul says that grace is lavished on us.  Another meaning for lavished is or can be squandered.  The amount of grace we have is immense, over the top, etc.

• He HAS already made known to us the mystery of his will.  How many times have you wondered what God's will is?  Paul says he's already done so and he goes on and explains it in subsequent verses (chapter 3).  He's working to bring unity in all things in heaven and on earth, through Christ.  There's very little mystery that remains, unless you're looking for some kind of fortune teller to 'splain *your* life.

It's amazing to see and incorporate all the things in scripture I'd been guided away from for so long. I am determined never to live on the front porch of this giant, well appointed mansion God has invited us to live in.  And I hope that you will too.