About 10 years ago my wife and I made one of our more hilarious impulse purchases in Oxford while walking the Square in the evening twilight at the end of an Ole Miss football Saturday. I don't remember the precise day, but the hot sun had set in the sky and we had thoroughly enjoyed ourselves in the Grove and beyond, stopping in and out of the shops on Lamar as we made our way back toward the car to head home, and that's when we saw it, or perhaps I should say "him". He was a 3-foot tall concrete caricature of the the Colonel Rebel. For reasons almost certainly related to the amount of time we had spent in the Grove that day we just had to have him. I forked over way too much money and then ran to fetch the car. I can't help but smile thinking of what my wife and I must have looked like trying to load that tremendously heavy lump of concrete into the trunk of our old sedan.
Not too long after that, on a different trip, we found a beautiful oil painting of the Grove, and it still proudly hangs on our living room wall.
We purchased these things so we could take little pieces of a place we love home with us.
That oil painting still has a prominent spot in our living room, and it serves as a beautiful reminder of one of our favorite places on earth - Ole Miss.
I'm guessing most of you probably have something to remind your of the Flagship U. displayed prominently in your home, too. Whether it's the Grove, the beach or the mountains, each of us likes to be reminded of places we love, don't we?
Well, that's what my preacher said Paul gave Christians in the first part of his letter to the Ephesians, a beautiful reminder of what we have in Christ. My preacher called it a panoramic view of Christianity.
We can look on God's word in Ephesians 1:3-14 and see everything our Creator did for us in all his splendor. How he gives us everything, even himself, through the work of his son Christ Jesus. He forgives us of our sins, adopts us as his own children, bestows us with unimaginable heavenly blessings and discloses his plan to unite us all with him one day. We have a rich, glorious inheritance in union with the God who loves us awaiting all thanks to the gospel, and it's all right there to admire in the first chapter of Ephesians.
Sometimes in the long hot months of June and July, when Ole Miss sports has come to a screeching halt, I find myself looking at that oil painting in the living room, remembering football games gone by, and it makes me long for the season to come.
But that's just football, and football won't get you through the trials of life.
If you find yourself in need of real, lasting hope today, read Ephesians 1:3-14. Dwell on it again and it again. Hang it on the wall of your heart and remember often what God has done for you and the destiny that awaits.