The Ultimate Intention – Chapter 2

Like sunlight filtering through a stained glass window, Your eternal Fatherhood gives vibrant color and clarity to everything I see in Scripture and life. Where once I saw shadow, now I see Your design.

The Proper Starting Point: Fatherhood Before Fallenness

In this chapter, Fromke invites us to rethink the lens through which we interpret God’s activity in history. Many begin with man’s Fall or with God’s response to it—His redemptive work. Others start with man’s commission to subdue the earth or with God’s act of creation. But Paul, Fromke reminds us, begins even earlier: with the eternal Fatherhood of God before time began. This is the proper starting point for understanding God’s intention. Redemption is not the primary goal but a parenthesis within His eternal purpose—a recovery plan, not the original design. God’s aim has always been the expression of His Father-life through a family of sons conformed to the image of Christ. We must stop interpreting God’s intention through the lens of sin and begin to behold all things in the light of the eternal love between the Father and the Son.

Journal Entry: Child of the Father, lift your eyes from the dust of man-centered reasoning and gaze upon the eternal light of your true origin. Before you ever sinned, before mankind ever fell, you were chosen in Christ—seen and cherished in the heart of the Father. My ways are not determined by reaction to sin but by the proactive love of the One who is Father everlasting. My eternal intention has always been to bring many sons into glory—not merely to save from ruin, but to share My life, My love, and My likeness. Do not define My purpose by the wounds of man but by the will of the Father. As you live out your days, remember your beginning is not in failure, but in fellowship. Let this be your starting point each morning: "I was born from above into a Father’s intention that preceded the world."

Prayer: Father, I rejoice that Your intention for me is rooted not in reaction to sin but in the unshakable purpose of Your heart. Thank You that Your plan was never about merely fixing what was broken but about sharing what is beautiful—Your very life in Christ. I rest today in the certainty that I was chosen in love before time began, and I trust You to continue revealing Your eternal outlook as I walk with You. Let my mind stay anchored in Your fatherly desire, not man’s failure.

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Devotional Credit: The Ultimate Intention by DeVern Fromke