Ephesians 6  Merry Christmas!  "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! "  ( 1:3)

We are truly blessed in and by Jesus.  We are redeemed, adopted, forgiven, and given an inheritance!
We have been made a new creation.. His "workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works... " 
We were far away, but we have been "brought near by the blood of Christ." 
We have been LOVED with the "great love" of God.
We have been given the Spirit of God to strengthen us in our "inner man".. so that we can walk a worthy walk.. worthy of His calling.
We have been renewed in our thinking.. so that we can speak truth , control anger, and be imitators of God!

And, because of all these blessings and millions more.. we must be careful how we walk.. we need to be wise, understanding His will for us.

He wills for us to be kept filled with His Spirit.
He wills for us to speak and sing from our hearts.. "to the Lord"
He wills for us to give thanks "for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to God, even the Father." 

He wills for wives to respect and submit to the leadership of their husbands.
He wills for husbands to love and sacrifice for their wives.
He wills for us to have marriages that reflect the love of Christ for His church.

He wills for children to love and respect their parents.
He wills parents to love and discipline and instruct their children in the Lord.
He wills for slaves to be obedient, sincere, rendering service with "good will.. as to the Lord "
He wills for masters to treat their slaves with brotherly love and good will.

And most of all He desires for us to "be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might" so that we can stand firm "against the schemes of the devil". 

So He gives us all the blessings.. armor.. that we need to accomplish this and "to stand firm":
He gives us truth to gird up our loins.
He gives us righteousness as a breastplate of protection.
He gives us peace to shod our feet and prepare us for the message of the Gospel.
He gives us a "shield of faith .. to extinguish all the flaming missiles of the evil one."
He gives us a "helmet of salvation" and a "sword of the Spirit" - the Word of God.

In all of these things.. He asks us to pray.. to pray always,  to pray with perseverance , to pray for boldness.. to pray for the Word of God to be spoken as it ought.  It is the attitude and practice of prayer that we receive from our Lord's Hand all that we need. It is in prayer that we commune and communicate with our Father in heaven and our Lord Jesus.

Father in heaven.. let Your will be done!  I yield to You.  I pray for my family, my church, and my community to seek You and to receive all of the blessings that are theirs in Christ, according to Your great love.  Thank You for the grace You have poured out to us today.  In the Name of the Beautiful One, Jesus Christ the Lord, I pray. Amen.