Eternally Claimed

When our boys were small, I might kiss one of them on the cheek, and he would reach up to rub it off.  "Don't kiss me!"

I would say, "That was a mom kiss, and mom-kisses don't rub off.  They sink in and are permanent."

That's what baptism is like.  God claims us and call us "his beloved children."  No matter what we do, how much we rub off the water of grace, the claim is permanent.  It sinks in.  There is nothing we can do to change that -- nothing we can do to make God love us more, or love us less.  We have been claimed, permanently.

Eternally.