For this reason do not be foolish, but be wise by understanding what the Lord’s will is.

He did this by predestining us to adoption as his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the pleasure of his will –

He did this when he revealed to us the secret of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ,

not like those who do their work only when someone is watching – as people-pleasers – but as slaves of Christ doing the will of God from the heart.

From Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints [in Ephesus], the faithful in Christ Jesus.

In Christ we too have been claimed as God’s own possession, since we were predestined according to the one purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will

among whom all of us also formerly lived out our lives in the cravings of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath even as the rest…