+Family
Family are the people who are blood related. Relationships may diverge by descent, but blood remains the bond that connects families together.
Lo! when God created us deciding in love for us to share His glory, ” He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being” ( Genesis 2:7). And the creation of man was the greatest of all God’s creation as He” created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” ( Genesis 1:27). But man fell out of this beautiful divine bond because he chose – with his own free will- to encroach the will of God. In Adam and Eve we were the first church that God made for Himself and breathed into it the breath of life. We were God’s family, enjoying His love, Beauty, majesty and gifts. Adam and Eve used to eat from paradise and were satisfied and their souls were filled with joy in the Lord, giving praise and thanks. We also enjoyed in Adam and Eve the wonderful scenery of the miraculous nature created by the hand of the Creator, moving our whole beings with the Fatherly love that we receive from God, so that we will not cease of joy, happiness, thanksgiving, and prostration for His greatness in the heavens. Adam was a true son of God, as our teacher Luke the Evangelist mentions him in the Gospel when he writes about The genealogy of Christ” the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of
God” ( Luke 3:38). Hence, it confirms how Adam was family in the presence of the Lord. Until Adam’s fall and his expulsion out of paradise to work in the land of misery instead of the Garden of Eden.
Yet how wondrous is God’s love with His superlative knowledge, not leaving us to eternal damnation, for since eternity we are in His salvation plan and everlasting love. This is what the Lord translated to us in the words of Jeremiah the prophet, addressing all humanity represented in the Virgin of Israel, saying:” The Lord has appeared [a]of old to me, saying: “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you….. For I am a Father to Israel, And Ephraim is My firstborn” ( Jeremiah 3:3,9). For God ” desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” ( 1 Timothy 2:4). For this reason God sent His only Son into the world to restore us through His incarnation, having human’s blood in His flesh to purify it from Satan’s poison, then pouring it on us for purification, and pouring it in our veins through the mystery of the Holy Eucharist, so that we are strengthened in Him and He in us. Becoming a bone of His bones and flesh from His flesh” For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones” ( Ephesians 5:30)….” He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him” ( John 6:56), enabling us to return to God and becoming from His family.
+The House of the Lord
Man has fallen from the Paradise of God and from His Divine presence, but with the coming of Christ, His incarnation, death, resurrection and His ascension into the heavens and His sitting on the right hand of the Father, He restored us- as Children to His Father- not to be in His paradise, but on His right arm and with Him eternally. It is no wonder to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit in the words of Saint Paul the Apostle saying:” Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God” ( Ephesians 2:19). Yes, we have become with the love of the Father, the grace of the Son
and the Union with the Holy Spirit, qualified to be in the kingdom of God. ” giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and [a]conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love” ( Colossians 1:12-13)…. ” and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” ( Ephesians 2:6).
How great is the love of Christ- to whom is all the glory- for us, where His last request from His Father during His time on earth was” “Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world” ( John 17:24). He wants us with Him and Him in us. His union with our flesh was not a temporary act to fulfill His redemption, but was an eternal union that translates His eternal love for us. Therefore now – we who believed and accepted Christ- became the children of God.” But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” ( John 1:12-13)….. As we have become the children of God, we are indeed a part of His household here in the Church of the present time, and also in eternity at the victorious Church. The Bible is filled with divine promises to us, as long as we are God’s children and from His household. However, we only get these privileges if we are in full union with Christ to Whom is all the glory. We must know that Jesus Christ as the Son of the Father by nature, and as the Son of man, obeying the Father’s love for us, which made Him accept to be incarnate, becoming a slave and putting Himself in full obedience of the Father to death, the death of the Cross” but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end” ( Hebrews 3:6)…..” God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord” ( 1 Corinthians 1:9).
Our God is good to all who believe in His Son and all who were faithful to Him. He is preparing the heavenly city that is worthy of the Lord’s generously to His household. The Book of Hebrews tells us about those who seek better homeland” These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off [a]were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them” ( Hebrews 11:13-16).
It suffices the Lord’s promise in the Book of Revelation ” Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city” ( Revelation 22:14)….” To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” ( Revelation 3:21-22).
Beloved, if that’s our share in the King Christ who was incarnate, and if this is the love of God and the works of the Holy Spirit in us, then how can we accept the distant pig’s farm?!!! How do we accept the bondage of the devil and the world and its deadly lusts?!! Isn’t it time for us to rise and return with true repentance to the Lord and His happy eternal household?!…. ” Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” ( Matthew 25:34). It’s an inheritance that is ”
incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you” ( 1 Peter 1:4).
O Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, who was born in Bethlehem, Who accepted our humanity in Your incarnation, Come and Hold our hands so that we rise from the death of our sins and the bondage of satan, to whom we have surrendered our lives willingly, washing and purifying us with Your Holy blood, so that we become worthy to enter into Your house, the house of the Lord. We trust in your call, and in your loving voice that says ” Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God” ( Ephesians 2:19).