Ephesians 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are at Ephesus and who are faithful in Christ Jesus: 2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3 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, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love 5 He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. 7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He lavished on us
It is beneath the created nature of a human being to focus on human beings before God or look at things from a human-centered point of view. Yet that is precisely what happens in so many Christian circles. People can look at passages like Ephesians 1:1-8 and think of the value and worth of man rather than the grace and glory of God. When this is done, man speaks much of God but only as if God is centered on man and is only exalted to the degree that He saves man. This is to tear God from the throne in the heart and mind and replace Him with man. Paul says “blessed be the God” when he starts off. Paul is focused on God and His eternal and infinite blessedness and what God does to the glory of His own name. The eternally and infinitely blessed God could do nothing but manifest Himself for His own glory. There is nothing greater that He could act for and there is nothing that can increase His joy and happiness, so He must act for His own glory and for manifesting who He is.
As one thinks through this passage of Scripture, it makes no sense to think of this eternally and infinitely blessed God as being man-centered and so saves sinners from His own wrath while being moved primarily for them. Instead, what makes sense is to think of an eternally and infinitely blessed God who out of that blessedness can save sinners for the sake of His own name and out of that infinite blessedness bring sinners to Himself to share in that blessedness. The Gospel, after all, is “according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God” (1 Timothy 1:11). A literal translation gives us a sense that is very much like the context of Ephesians 1 when it reads “the Gospel of the glory of the blessed God.” When Paul (in Eph 1) says “Blessed be the God and Father” he is not writing as if he could somehow bring blessing to God, but is pointing to the glory of the blessed God who alone can give all the spiritual blessings that flow from His blessedness. It is out of His blessedness that He can bless and He does so to the glory of His name, which tells us about Him who displays His glory and blessedness in the Gospel of the glory of Jesus Christ far more than it does the ones that receive the blessing.
This blessed God who blessed His people with every spiritual blessings did so according to the pleasure of His will to the praise of the glory of His grace. This blessed God who chose His people before the foundation of the world and made them holy and blameless before Him in Christ did so according to the pleasure of His will to the praise of the glory of His grace. This blessed God who took some of the sons of the devil and predestined them to adoption as His sons in Christ did so according to the pleasure of His will to the praise of the glory of His grace. In each case we should notice that it was not according to the will of the human soul, but according to the pleasure of His will. In each case we should notice that God did not do these things according to human choice or so called “free-will”, but according to His own will. We should notice that it is not up to the human being to be saved as he pleases, but according to the pleasure of God. We should take very close notice to see that sinners are saved to the praise of the glory of His grace and not according to their merit or worth.
The heart of God is seen in this passage and we see that God saves to the glory of His own name (the value and worth of Himself) and not according to some value or worth found in the sinner. We see that God saves to the glory of His grace and not because there is some merit found in the sinner. God saves because of who He is and in spite of who the sinner is. God saves out of love for His own glory and a love for Himself as manifested by His grace rather than anything found in or done by the sinner. God saves because He loves Himself and His own glory and as such grace must always be sovereign or it is not grace at all.
God Loves... Himself 
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