Embraced by the Father. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing 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.“ (Eph 1:3-6)

It is God’s plan and will that we are to be his adopted sons. But because of original sin, we don’t come into life as adopted sons of the Father, only as creatures. Only through Jesus, Our Lord and Savior is this relationship restored by virtue of his obedience to the Father even to the death on the cross.

From all eternity the Father chose his own divine Son by nature–The Word–to become man and to demonstrate how in his own humanity man could be the son of the Father. The Son of God became man to reconcile us back to God, to heal the Father wound caused by sin, to restore us to our graced inheritance as adopted sons of the Father.  (To be continued)