Every day as we pray, we should slow down and ask ourselves: how is the Father looking at us? He is not looking at us based upon our last few sins. He looks at us as accepted in the beloved.
"He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the One He permanently Loves, the Beloved One" (Ephesians 1:5-6).
We are clothed in Christ, in the Beloved One. In the ancient world, clothes were not foremost decorative: clothes communicated the status of a person. In the Greco-Roman world, laws governed what a person should wear because those clothes represented the status or the acceptability of the individual. Therefore, being in the Beloved meant a Christian is granted the status of Jesus Christ before the Father. Verse five tells us this is something the Father wants to do; it is based on the "kind intention of His will" or settled desire. Every question of our acceptability is answered. The Father accepts us with the same quality of love that He has for His Only unique Son.
