Predestined for Adoption

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.” With these words, St. Paul begins his letter to the saints at Ephesus, giving thanks to God that He had called the Ephesian Christians to faith, as He had planned to do from before all ages.

Like the Ephesians, you too have been chosen before the foundation of the world. What a wonderful comfort this message gives! God has chosen you! Of all the people who have ever lived, God has foreknown your life and being, and He has chosen that you should be saved from sin, death, and hell.

God has chosen you, that He might bless you “with every spiritual blessing” through Jesus Christ. He has predestined you to be created, redeemed, and sanctified by His holy Word and Spirit. He has predestined you “for adoption as sons”, that you might be His own dear children, just as He is your own dear Father. He has elected you for salvation, that you might “be holy and blameless before Him” by the forgiveness of your sins in Jesus Christ. What a wonderful, comforting, hope-giving message St. Paul preaches.

“They Will Know That a Prophet Has Been Among Them”

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

How do you know that God is here? Many people wonder about the presence of God in our midst, and how you can actually know that God is here. Furthermore, even if you know that God is in your midst, for what reason is He here? Does God come to bless and to give love and life, or does He come to judge and condemn and kill? How can you know? By His Word, in which the Lord reveals Himself and His will for you and for all mankind.

Ezekiel reports in today's Old Testament lesson that “The Spirit entered into me and set me on my feet.” He was called by God directly and immediately to preach the Word to the people of Israel. In Ezekiel's time, the people of God were in exile in Babylon, and many had given up the faith of their fathers – however weak that had been – and settled into a sort of sad agnosticism, some paying lip service to the gods of their pagan captors.

Laying Hold of Jesus

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

One of the things common to man is the tendency to doubt the things of God. In fact, during the Age of Enlightenment, it became something of a fad to doubt the existence of God, or anything that could not be empirically measured and analyzed. The French philosopher Rene Descartes asserted that, “I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am.” It took awhile, but eventually this tendency toward doubt even has spilled over into the Church.

From an human perspective, doubting is much easier than believing. After all, creation is inexplicable. For how many centuries has man been attempting to unravel the mystery of the beginning of the universe? Some propose the Big Bang Theory. Others say it always has been. Who knows? How can we ever really figure out our own origins?