Destined to be Loved Forever

In the first reading of today’s liturgy, Ephesians 1: 1-10, St. Paul reminds us that we are blessed-- "blessed in Christ with every spiritual blessings in the heavens, as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him. In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ, in accord with the favor of his will, for the praise of the glory of his grace that he granted us in the beloved.”

“Every spiritual  blessing!” Do I  realize, I asked myself,  what that truly means? Every blessing, not just some, but all! Every blessing “in the heavens”, not “every blessing in or from the earth,” though, of course, I receive those heavenly blessings here!  Every blessing in the heavens—that means union with the Lord God, God’s love, abundant love; reconciliation with the Lord, the forgiveness of sin.  In Psalm 103, the psalmist proclaims: “….he takes our sins farther away than the east is from the west.”

Paul also reminds us about being adopted by God: “….[God] destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ.”  Jesus is the one who removed the consequences of our disobedience and restored us to right relationship with God the Father as an adopted daughter, an adopted son of God.   

  

How awesome! How deep the love of our God for each one of us “destined…for adoption”!

And there is so much more in this reading. I encourage each of you to open your Bibles to Ephesians 1: 1-10. You will be filled with grace as you ponder this passage and make appropriate applications as given you by the Spirit of God speaking within you.

Consecrated--Made Holy and One with God--by Christ Jesus

Both readings of today’s liturgy, Acts 20: 28-38 and John 17: 11b-19, are farewell discourses. Paul is saying goodbye to the people he served and to whom he proclaimed the Good News of salvation. Jesus is saying goodbye just before going to the Garden of Gethsemane where He accepted His Father’s will to shed His blood for our salvation and to show us the depth of God’s love for us.

I am blown away by Jesus’ final prayer for us. He asks His Father, His Abba, and ours, to “keep” us in His “name that you have given me, so that they may be one just we are one.”   Jesus is praying that we may be one with the Trinity as the Persons of the Trinity are one with each other. In no way will the Father not answer Jesus’ prayer. His request will be granted. We, as God’s adopted children, are in the process of realizing our oneness with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We have the choice of saying “yes” to this gift that Jesus wants for us! 

Jesus reminds the Father that those the Father has given to Him He has guarded and that none of them have been lost. He says to the Father: “I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world.”  May we let those words sink into our very beings: you and I do not belong to this world!  Jesus then goes on to say to the Father: “I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the Evil One….Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth….I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.” Remember we are one with Jesus, who dwells in our very being so in Jesus’ consecration, we, too, are consecrated.

Wow! What an awesome God!  May you and I live up to the dignity that Jesus has secured for us by the shedding of His blood and His consecration of us.