Tax refund season is coming up. Are you hoping for a nice return from the government? It makes you feel rich, doesn’t it? What will you spend it on? 

Did you know that God is rich? 

And more importantly, He likes to spend!

By contrast, the Ephesians were poor. In fact, in a manner of speaking, they were in debt. They were dead in sin, walking according to the way of the world with Satan as a traveling companion, going from lust to lust, with absolutely no hope of salvation in sight. By that measure, they had accumulated a debt of wrath. And payday was coming up. 

Then God entered the picture.

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us… (Eph 2:4). 

The Ephesians were poor, but God was—and is—rich in mercy. He had mercy to spend, and He wanted to spend it on them, and on you, “because of His great love with which He loved us.” 

God shows His riches both now and later. 

In terms of the present, God shows His riches now in giving believers salvation through faith in Christ, apart from works (cf. Eph 2:8-9). That’s pure mercy and grace. Merit and desert have nothing to do with it. 

In terms of the future, God will also show His riches in the Millennial age: 

that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus (Eph 2:7).

We don’t really know what the next age is going to be like. We get glimpses of it here and there in the Bible—inklings of its greatness. Here’s what I do know. So far, God has not spared any expense on you. He gave His only begotten Son for you. What does that tell you about how He will show the riches of His grace in the next age? As Paul asked the Romans,

He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? (Rom 8:32 NASB).